Fiction

I think at last I will give up the Blacksmith House. I’ve liked the place since college, when my best friend, Celia, and I would meet for coffee in those frugal, scrubbed pine rooms, full of the feel of long-dead Puritans, which we were not. You could smoke in public in those days, and we…

Drink your cod-liver oil or the moon will eat you, my grandmother used to say. Well, I didn’t drink my cod-liver oil and the moon didn’t eat me. But one night I refused to drink my milk when I was visiting my grandmother, who lived in a white-frame farmhouse on the outskirts of Bloomington, and…

They heard their mother yell their father’s name, and came from their beds barefoot and squinting. Jeff Driver was in the kitchen. He was crying, and he told them that the bridge on Cascom Mountain Road had washed out. He looked at Kate’s mother and said her name, “Carey.” Then he looked at Kate and…

The shelled corn bin was like a huge box over the alleyway of the corncrib. Millions of crisp and yellow corn kernels, ten feet deep, and ten feet square at the top. The boys liked to dive into it, letting it sting their hands and faces as they squirmed until they almost disappeared into the…

Libby killed herself just before the holidays, and so the flamingo stayed where it had been hidden-in the rotten shed at the edge of our yard. I’d often sneak out to look at it. The flamingo seemed incredibly big, its wooden neck reaching up past the shelves of potting soil and garden shears. It stood…

Listen to me, said the boys’ grandfather. When I was a boy, you had to be smart or you could get hurt. Their grandfather had already sat down in his old swivel chair. He lit one of his cigars and took a big puff. The boys made themselves comfortable on the floor. We milked by…

It was Thanksgiving Day and hot, because this was New Orleans; they were driving uptown to have dinner with strangers. Ella pushed at her loose tooth with the tip of her tongue and fanned her legs with the hem of her velvet dress. On the seat beside her, Benjamin fidgeted with his shirt buttons. He…

These are the first words I’ve written since J. fell down the stairs, unless you count lists. I have lists in my pockets, lists tacked to the bulletin board above my desk. Small lists on Post-its ruffle like feathers against walls and bureaus. Chunky baby food, milk, Cheerios. Diaper Genie refills. Huggies overnight diapers. This…

I have a recurring dream in which I open the front door to my father’s house, and he has a slanted block of wood, the doorstop, in his hand. He thinks I’m trying to break in. Without his glasses, in the unlit hallway, he thinks I’m a burglar. He’s going to stop me with a…