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Rooms

Fatima remembers the infant eyes closing against the first handfuls of dirt. She stopped moving almost immediately, as if the sheerest blanket of earth were too heavy.

Darrell

I liked my truck. I liked to put all my blocks in the back and cart them from room to room. But I loved Merry’s doll.

Refuge

Having a room of one’s own, eating compulsively, scribbling

Separate From Love

Women hold gloved hands over your face, protect you from what really happens in the world, then laugh at your awkwardness.

Visitors

Sharing C rations, picking up where you left off, stealing forbidden knowledge

All The Panamas In The World And Herb’s

Carol had on a pink blouse. Her bra straps made these small ridges in the cloth. Every time she bent to reach for another glass, a small crescent of purple poked from beneath the pink. It looked like the edge of a real whopper.

Bindwater

Why the sisterhood had to build this pain in, with the Power always skipping a generation, the mothers and daughters always a loss to one another, she didn’t know. She had yielded to it until Annabelle became pregnant. Then, something with the fineness and power of a spiderweb had drawn the young woman, along with her husband, back to the neighborhood where she was born.

Dear Michael

Kevin Murray, retired, one-time police chief of a small midwestern city, turned on his electric typewriter and began his third letter of the day. “Dear Abbie Hoffman, It says in the newspapers you killed yourself because you weren’t getting enough attention. Makes sense. More sense than most of what you said. . . .”

Three Audreys

Lil’ Audrey had heard that joke weeks before at school, but she didn’t think people, even her Daddy, should be telling jokes about the dead. Besides, she knew Octavia’s grandson, Skeeter, was one of Dr. King’s followers.

On The First Anniversary Of The Death Of Our Love