In an opened window, a man was calling Help! Help me!—unmistakably, in English. The man appeared to be only partly clothed; at least, what the American woman could glimpse of his chest and part of his belly appeared to be bare.
Read MoreAn odd, soapy, purple light—the translucent advertising sheath attached to the outside of the car was filtering the sun—gave his hands a bruised discoloration, as if he’d been in a fistfight.
Read MoreWe’d roll onto our stomachs, laughing, bees zipping overhead and searching for something sweet.
Read MoreI was always invited to stay and eat with them, and unless I had plans, or wanted them to think I did, I mostly accepted.
Read MoreIf her movie was panned, I would find some fuel for myself, a source of heat.
Read MoreThe weirdest thing I’ve dreamed is that our son was born a catfish.
Read MoreTrevor was down by the crabgrass, the train hurtling away at forty miles an hour.
Read MoreThe snow was slushy, sticky, which Georgia liked because it slowed her down.
Read MoreBy summer, Sparrow and I had buried two friends, and we knew we would bury at least one more. We broke into abandoned buildings and made plans. We would run away. We would stop talking to our mothers.
But this is a ghost story, so let’s begin this one here:
Read MoreI slammed the door behind Tyson and me and all the curtains sucked in and out.
Read MoreMy stepmother, Bess, didn’t “cuss,” so when she picked me up at the college gates to take me to dinner, she acknowledged that she’d been a “b” during my last year of high school and asked if I’d been to the fried chicken place downtown. I hadn’t—not because I didn’t want to go, but because I didn’t want to suggest it to my new friends.
Read MorePeople in town had taken to calling it “that baby of Cherry’s” or just “that baby.” This was the first time he’d seen the child.
Read MoreRecognizing the American as competition, he blew poison rays at him, and Bullet moved on. On a street named Tranquility he came to a small violet house whose windows and doors were closed. He hopped the fence.
Read MoreLauren places her hand on the boy’s back to know he’s breathing, and she thinks what she’s been thinking since they left Texas—that she has no intention of being his mother.
Read MoreThe rivers had cleared up and were running blue, scouring the year’s silt from the bottoms, cleaning and scrubbing every stone. From time to time she and her father would see a bald eagle sitting in a cottonwood snag overlooking the river.
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