Fiction

Cara has crooked feet because we're poor. They are twisted up like an old lady's and bunions haunt her big toes. She's getting the wraps off today and she's truly believing her feet are going to be beautiful. Mama spoons some dry pancake mix into her mouth and says, "Don't get your hopes too high….

She wrote to say this: Send me a picture of the boy we never had, the one with blue eyes, big ears, and a smile that says, Nothing, so far, has hurt too bad. She wrote: Yesterday, when I got your letter, I carried it with me like a dark bloom. I took it with…

Emma's tongue woke him, wending a slow trail downward from his chest and making his hair stand on end. "Mmmm, salty," she said, smacking her lips as his eyes fluttered open, and then the trail of moistness, cool against the morning air, continued down, while Flaubert, the cat, observed with oriental and detached curiosity, and…

There are four of them: Rick and MaryAnn, Molly and Molly's father, MaryAnn's ex. His name is Art. He is a gangly man with a reddish beard and a face that is slightly off kilter. Even on the river he smokes constantly and flicks the butts of his cigarettes into the brown, swift water. They…

My father looked very healthy on the day of his death. There was radiance in his face, light in his eyes, his cheeks were ruddy with a good circulation of blood. It was December 6th, and there was a slanted snowstorm outdoors. When you looked through the window, you had a feeling that the whole…

When she was six she wanted to be a goldfish. She could breathe through clear water and watch the world through glass. But she didn't want to be orange, like her own fish, she wanted to be gold. That was when she lived with her father, and he bought her whatever she asked for. Usually…

Red Deer turned the ball in his hand. They were yelling in the bleachers now. "Chief! Go home, Chief!" The ball fit in his palm like a stone. He caught the stitching with his nails, then raised his eyes to the catcher. The catcher thrust two fingers at the ground. A slider. Red Deer nodded,…

We could tell it was him by the knock on the door. He would pound it shaking the whole thing, causing the dogs in the backyard to bark and snarl and leap against the picket fence-a muddy-colored gate, really. I stayed near the back of the kitchen, hands pressed on my knees, all ashy and…

Cecily's parents are divorcing, and perhaps for revenge, perhaps to distract, perhaps to build self-esteem, her mother Kate has taken to frenetic self-improvement. Shopping trips, perms and cuts, nail wraps, aerobic exercises, massages. Now she is going to Calistoga to the mud baths. Cecily finds the idea of mud baths bizarre, yet, curious and amused…