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One                         I don’t know what came over me. Why I did it. I panicked. She didn’t threaten me at all. She couldn’t have done so, given her circumstances. I probably posed more of a threat to her than the reverse. But I found myself in an unfamiliar situation. In a scary neighborhood. I didn’t know what…

Outside the city, lights flash in his rearview mirror. The police car pulls ahead of him and he stops behind it. The white cop emerges and looks angry. Or happy and content. It would not matter. The motorist of color freezes. He tries to avoid the appearance of carrying anything, or of raising his hands….

The first thing you see when you wake up is the Pan Am bag hanging from your mother’s shoulder. It is blue and white and has a hole in one corner. You’re in your father’s arms, still groggy with sleep, and as he carries you off the plane, you ask, “Is this where I go…

Madeline Voltaire (1946–present)   She was an only child, adored by her mother and father, but she was lonely and she vowed, when she married, to have as many children as her body would allow. Madeline had long black hair, so long she could sit on it or wear it piled in thick curls atop…

It’s only six months, the social worker told Mauro. Then you’ll have your daughter home. She said there were far worse places they could send a girl convicted of such a crime. She described the compound as being like a summer camp, a small boarding school in the campo, a retreat even if operated by…

When I finally returned to Southern California, I expected to find the locals in the grips of apocalyptic fear, arming themselves and venturing out from fortified homes only for the most necessary provisions. The area had recently suffered a brutal terrorist attack, during which over a dozen people were gunned down while attending a retirement…