Fiction

Everett flicks a toggle, and the chain circling the thirty-two-inch bar jolts to a stop. Blue exhaust clears in favor of the syrupy scent of fresh-cut pine, its amber-black pitch everywhere: the saw, his used-to-be-white T-shirt, his jeans, yellow work boots, yellow work gloves, inside his forearms. Everett rests the...

It was the cheapest motel on the beltway. Dakota knew it was a crapshoot how large a dent his mother had made into the amount owed on his sole credit card. He’d nearly shit himself when the tired old man behind the front desk told him the room’s cost. Couldn’t...

HARLOW POSTCARD 1 CENT Amulet Harlow & the Fertility Rite “Not only was Bello still jobless, but his newfound status as a movie star’s stepfather had increased his infidelities. Enraged and disgusted, Mother Jean contacted a lawyer in secret until Bello discovered her scheme and threatened to sell pornographic photos...

Mimi. Or Miriam, as you’re always correcting me. I thought you’d at least come down here yourself. Instead you hired some white woman from an agency. You arranged for my abduction. Casually, remotely. Trish Hopkins from a place called Flanders Meadows. And all I can picture when she says this...

He once caught Nana singing in a language whose words seemed all one seamless word. She was singing to her paintings, portraits of faces he’d never known and could only ask whose bodies they belonged to. “Me,” Nana said. “These are my faces, all of them.” Yet he couldn’t understand...

The boy, Billy, was the husband. He pinched an imaginary tie knot between his fingers, straightened it in front of an imaginary mirror, then ran his hand over his blond curls in an attempt to mat them into a neat, business-like part. He picked up a lunch box of Legos...

I am a bad mother. I’ll be the first to admit it. Take Little League games. Can’t stand them. All these blonde sorority moms, pushy or prissy or both, and black-haired, tattooed me, cheering on our little darlings. Please. I wouldn’t even be here if Mom hadn’t signed Noah up...