When Glen Tubiscky appeared in the doorway, he was bigger than Marko thought he would be. Of course, everyone said that about professional athletes up close. But were all snarling linebacker gods so winsome? Marko was not a sports man, but even he felt humbled by Glen’s presence though not by the timeless flop of …
The first gift comes on a Sunday afternoon. A single Reese’s cup. Benny slides it across the marbled desk in the lobby, alongside a stack of mail and my weekly Whole Foods delivery. “What’s this?” Benny shrugs. “It was in your box. Note on the back.” I turn it over, feel the wrapper’s familiar crinkle …
I don’t know what to tell you, he tells her as they stand on the shore of the lake that did not used to be here. The water is ragged, like scraps of torn newsprint pasted hastily to a sheet of dark blue paper, little peaks of semi-translucent foam the color of dried glue cresting …
My mother had this idea in her head that, if she signed me up for activities like swim lessons, I might be baptized into another kind of life. But I was no longer allowed at the city pool. Trashy is what she called it. No one at the city pool knew how to swim, she …
That spring after the Lockerbie bombing, your friend Clay changes his name to Foe. He doesn’t say why, but he’ll stick with the weird name because he’s stubborn with his impulses. He’s there at his locker, closing the door, when you come up. A couple of weeks ago, he’d splashed hydrochloric acid on the enamel, …
Mumma’s hair could be found everywhere except on her head. She had alopecia. Then came the cancer. But she also had me and my sister. “Just one after another,” she’d say about her diseases. But also, about her daughters, Rania in the womb while I was on her breast. Her flossy strands showed up all …
I am aiming, those first nights. For unswerving patience. For forgiveness of moods and missteps, his and mine. Is he ignoring chores? Finishing only fragments of schoolwork? Forgetting at the front door to remove sneakers? Well, he’s only a boy. Our home has shifted into a foreign space, new, jarring waves dazing us each hour …
Phil knew the cherries on his kitchen counter weren’t cherries. His wife, however, insisted they were. She purchased them herself from the market just down the street from their tiny, one bedroom apartment. What else could they be? No, there’s something wrong with them, Phil insisted. His wife popped a cherry into her mouth, chewed, …
I am at the arcade when I turn and find my two-year-old standing before the claw machine. The claw jerks to life when she twists the knobs. Someone had left a credit. I think about jumping in, helping her. The machine is filled with panda bears, difficult for an adult to win, let alone a …
Midge takes special care never to see the babies her husband brings home. (Fetuses, he likes to remind her, not babies. Always a scientist first, her George.) Spared from the draft by a polio-twisted leg, George spent the war years working in hospitals and labs: removing dead mice from cages, transporting and embalming cadavers from …