Will steered the dresser across the lawn to the curb where his BMW was waiting. He opened the back door and sighed. Despite its decade-old rust, the Beamer was still a car designed to carry laughing women, not pieces of… Continue Reading
Doug was in the living room with his mum. “Did you come in your truck?” she asked. Doug nodded. “Wasn’t that truck a gift from a friend?” “Hugh,” said Doug. “He left it to me, eight years ago, when he… Continue Reading
By mid-afternoon there is nothing left of the garage but charred wood and heat-warped tin. Three firefighters, her mother and four neighbors speak of how lucky no one is hurt and that the fire hadn’t spread and that someone spotted… Continue Reading
Mom always told me my blackberry pie tasted like hers. We’d both be bent at the waist, shoulders hunched, sturdily pushing rolling pins through flour-coated dough in the tiny kitchen. Heat would pool at the back of my neck and… Continue Reading
When Father died, Mama and I inherited a crumbling castle in a distant forest, and nothing else. But thither we went — the rest of Father’s fortune went to a male relation, who turned us out of our town house… Continue Reading
“I’m just saying, it seems fucked up to tell her, she doesn’t even know who he is anymore,” Jenny said. “It’s more fucked up not to tell her,” Susan said. The sisters were continuing the argument they’d been having via… Continue Reading
I had hoped for an easy Saturday, but our toddler started yelling at 5am again. My husband Hyun and I dragged through the morning, playing a groggy game of bumper cars in the kitchen as coffee dribbled into the carafe.… Continue Reading
Thirty minutes past his mother’s scheduled appointment time, Milovan looks to the clock, pleads with it, says a prayer. He sees that it tilts to the left so that the “1” sits where the “12” should be. Or maybe his… Continue Reading
The bridge to my mother erodes in word-shaped chunks: broken sentences and hesitant pauses. Frustration traces the downward curve of Ma-Ma’s mouth, a bow with no arrows left to fire. “Na ge,” she says. Brittle fingers tug at her hair,… Continue Reading
My mother left with two suitcases. Instead of fleeing a lover, she fled a nation. Ran. From the advancing army. From tanks that rumbled over the earth and up through the soles of her feet, until her knees ached, and… Continue Reading