Fiction

Our first au pair killed the neighbor’s dog the morning after she came to Alabama. She was eighteen and looked like her name in Finnish: Satu — a fairytale. Her…

“Stay,” I say to my six-year-old Charlie, like I’m talking to a dog or something, my voice harsh and jagged. I know that I should do that breathing thing or…

We’re halfway home when the conversation stalls. Tommy is looking out the window. It is dark and the rain is pouring down, the traffic growing heavier as we pass the…

“Excuse me, ma’am, but you can’t do that here.” The policeman gestures toward me with his night stick. I squint at him as he sways in and out of the…

A stick of chewing gum. He was always chewing. You called it common, tried to stop him but he only smiled and offered you some. He’d been doing it since…

The dull rumor aching beneath her skin told her it would be her last winter. Thunderclaps from inside the womb. No one would believe her, would believe the clots she…

Fingerprints smudge windows, blur clarity of glass, mar views, life, my certainty that winter trees are exactly what they seem – roots, trunks, empty branches spread across empty skies. Until…

A plastic shield sucks my breast. I am a milk machine. Between phone calls, frozen food, forms, and emails, I feel the twinge of pain. The plastic won’t conform. Not…

Out of the corner of her eye she sees it. A flutter. A blur. At first she thinks handkerchief. Something white and untethered. Then the feeling of panic. The height.…

They end up buying a gift card at Target. While they had wandered through the mall, Jeremy reasoned that it could be used to buy diapers and formula and baby…

“How are you?” “Fine.” “Do you want anything?” “No.” “How about a drink?” I look at him. “I mean, ginger ale, water, juice?” “I’m not sick,” I say. “I know,…