Category: Fiction

  • COCKATOO TEARS

    “Mom. We have to save the rainforests.” These were the seven words with which my seven-year-old greeted me as she climbed into the minivan in the Pittsburgh Zoo parking lot. I swiveled around in the driver’s seat, trying to get a good look at her face. Her piercing blue eyes stared solemnly back at me…

  • HEMINGWAY’S DAUGHTER

    “We got some tragic news. My niece, Raquel, took her own life yesterday morning. She had not been suffering depression that anyone knew of. She did have a headache the past week and said she didn’t feel like herself and just didn’t feel good. My sister, had stayed overnight at their house Sunday night because…

  • HEMINGWAY’S DAUGHTER

    “We got some tragic news. My niece, Raquel, took her own life yesterday morning. She had not been suffering depression that anyone knew of. She did have a headache the past week and said she didn’t feel like herself and just didn’t feel good. My sister, had stayed overnight at their house Sunday night because…

  • THE ADULTS

    On Saturday morning, I sit in bed and scroll through my phone and try to remember when, exactly, weekends became something to be endured. I text Madeline to ask if she and her girlfriend, Lauren, are going to Alice’s birthday party. Madeline is the one friend I have who does not require a week’s notice…

  • City of Strays

    It is after dark, and I’m waiting for Martin to return. He’s out jogging, his nightly ritual, though he’s been gone longer than usual. I’m seated cross-legged on the couch checking email on my laptop and, behind me, I hear the rain against the glass. I glance up to my left and see the top…

  • Bondservant

    These mountains are killing me—killing all of us—though I know it’s in self-defense. Getting away from here is all I can think about as I step off the bathroom scale, skim my jeans over my pelvic bones, take up the slack inch of denim with a safety pin. Another pound has slid off me this…

  • ENJOY THE CLAMS

    When Claire traveled, which she did often, she left a message in the bathroom of every hotel room she slept in, for the eyes of whoever stayed there after she had gone. She would write it on the mirror, in big letters, with a bar of soap, smearing the soap thickly onto the mirror, then…

  • PHONE CALL

    When the phone rang, Connie froze as if she’d been caught, her arm elbow deep in a family size bag of Skinny Pop. No one ever called Connie, and as she stared at the offending device she wondered, ironically, what type of person still called a landline. She ignored the jangling until it ceased and…

  • What Shines From It

      We’re in bed when I say it, he on his stomach, eyes closed, me stretched out next to him, watching his fists clench the pillow. If you lost your wife because of this, would it be worth it? Something I’ve asked myself over and over, in those dark hours between midnight and 5 a.m.,…