Fiction

My city is like a saltwater pearl, gently, gently cradled by the Wasatch mountains. The crescent of the foothills tenderly curve around the city like the palm of a mother’s…

“Did your daughter tell you?” my mother says. “I’m married.” “You’re married?” I don’t have long to talk. I’m calling her on my cell phone during a break at a…

It was after five and the Café was closing. Rose had just finished wiping the booths and window ledges and was ready to mop the tiled floor when a police…

The children knew, mostly, what had been done, what they did. But they didn’t want to talk about it. They wanted to talk about what had been done to them…

–Friday, June 28, 8:00 a.m.– Susan Blankenship peers through sleep-sticky eyelids. Whether it’s the chattering magpies outside, the alarm’s monotonous snarl or baby Kerry’s “Mommy! Mommy!” crib-side call, she cannot…

–Rush hour– Passing the Olympia Brewery to the right, Susan thanks even the lesser gods that her passenger will soon be gone. Kali yaks. Yak yak yak. About everything, nothing.…

Throughout the month of August, I watched as Matthew gathered important belongings into piles around the house wherever there was a little space. The pile of sox, the pile of…

The circumstances surrounding Donna’s death make me feel uncharacteristically mellow. Waterlogged garlic peels wreathe the sink. I notice how much they look like miniature tea bags. Our dinner guests left…

I spotted her when I rounded a bend. She was by the side of the road, in the shadow of trees which line old Route 19, a slow narrow route…

Margaret suddenly had a yearning for cake. Chocolate cake. She had six boxes of cake mix to choose from in the pantry. She took two from the shelf and set…

Laura allows herself this. Allows herself this first moment to stand under the stream of near-scalding water. Really it only feels this way. The water is nowhere near scalding because…