Fiction

I was only five when Dad told me I had died. “You drowned,” he said.

Albert came to her rescue. “The Great Gatsby’s our religion,” he said.

Pressed against his body, mean with wanting, she’d surrendered.

Rain falls steadily, rattling down drainpipes and gurgling into gutters.

Ella knew she hadn’t hurt Sebastian, but she knew she’d betrayed him.

“Wanna give it a go?” my brother asks, nudging me with his 12-gauge.

The man said in a hard voice, “I wanna fuck you, little Indian girl.”

I miss sex. I really liked it, and I was good at it, if I do say so myself.

Mama would say beware of the little flaws that make one homely.

Amy put her arm around his shoulders. My boy. Isn’t he wonderful?

His eyes always astonish her. Iridescent blue, flecked with black. Her husband was gone, two years later than she should’ve thrown him out.

The guy from the funeral home can’t get the gurney into the house.

A small circle of friends and family babysat so she could go to school.

As I lit the samovar, she stepped through the door with that reserved gaze and whispering voice of hers. The Kabul of my childhood. The Kabul of affectionate gestures, of wise, soft-spoken street vendors. She ended the conversation in her usual discerning way, smoothing the blanket across my chest.

She always came back with her lipstick smeared all over her mouth.

We’re fat! So what? They hadn’t yet tired of this chant, the play’s refrain.

The Others came in the light of day and splayed Father open.

There was nothing sadder than the look of defeat in a man’s eyes.

Design a way to kill those rats, and do it now, Fiori, do it now.

When an adult falls, children are stunned and cry, “Mommy! Mommy!”

She had yellow cat eyes that she insisted were also blond.

I hightailed it out of the hospital like my ex-wife was a prison I’d escaped.

Louise watched from the shadow. She was looking for somewhere to land.

The war was about to begin, and the four boys were
in charge.

While they stand in line Robin leans into his chest. They don't talk.

It’s like his bottom half is not man but a strong horse.

A whippoorwill called, a lonely voice among the cedars.

The lion was still near them, stalking. Crazed against its cautionary nature.

I open the door and Eleanor is leaning against the wall, paper white.