1749 I never answer when my mother searches for me. She calls to me in Dutch and sends the dogs after me, but I hide in the tall grass. Foxy and Abby are great big bulldogs, one mottled like a rainy sky, one white as snow. They never bark when they find me; instead, they…
We bought the nylons before evening prayer at a twenty-four-hour grocery three miles away. They came folded inside paper envelopes, tawny mesh showcased under cellophane windows. We bought a dozen. They tend to rip. Later, we disagreed about whether the envelopes could be recycled. If paper’s affixed with plastic, is it still paper? Eventually, we…
I’m stepping into an espresso bar, fragrant with strong coffee and sweet cornetti, when my attention is drawn uphill by a weathered pink-and-green sign offering a vacancy at Il Piccolo Tesoro. The small treasure. I’m not greedy. The adjective appeals as much as the noun promises. I chose this Ligurian village in the sensible way,…
“The Rabbi’s father is coming!” Rose, the secretary, always overly exuberant, was telling Miriam Goldman the news. When they saw Claire walk in, Rose turned to her. “I’m so excited about your father’s visit!” “Thank you,” said Claire. “It’s so sweet he’s coming all the way here.” “It is,” agreed Claire, and hoped her insincerity—and…
At sixty-two, I am already old. Brittle as the sticks we used to gather for kindling, voice careful now and full of draughts, skin like hide. There’s not much that I can keep down–a boiled potato mashed into milk, a slice of bread and butter, a mug of tea if it has been left to…
Dr. Katya Vidović stands outside the hospital courtyard gate, watching the Reptile Man exercise his pets. He has come to entertain the girls—her patients—who are prone to unnatural behaviors when left unsupervised. They’ve been known to pull out their own hair by the fistful, to tattoo their inner arms and thighs with the needles of…
The news would have been shocking anywhere but seemed especially so in a town like ours, or so we liked to believe: a young mother choosing to asphyxiate herself and infant son in the family Volvo while her husband was at work in the city and their daughter in preschool at the Episcopal Church. Everyone…
The first time he shared a room at the Hotel Río Azul with a woman, he was young and the country was at war. The government celebrated the New Year by announcing that the war had ended in a victory for the Army. On New Year’s day the UNGR guerrillas struck back, blacking out the…
from The Swank Hotel There was a girl, way back, who was going to become the patron saint of the mentally ill and their caretakers. The girl loved her father, and her priest loved her in a fatherly way. Her father, the petty king of Oriel, loved his queen. To him, the queen was perfect,…
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