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Anatomy Of A Lie

I can’t tell you this, but my mother has a dot on her lung. It’s a small dot, on the left lung. If her lung were a map of Texas, the dot would be roughly the size of the city of El Paso, which is large enough to be written in boldface type by Rand McNally.

Dogland

“He says he believes God is a Yorkshire terrier.” My sister Nance’s voice hissed across the long-distance lines.

Family Reunions

A family graveyard, a redwood tree, a private language

Yipper

I kept walking backwards. My shadow on the wall of the house was monstrously tall. I waved at it with both arms. The shadow’s arms were longer and wilder than mine.

The Forgotten Children

When I pushed away the cot and lifted the trapdoor, his eyes glinted for a moment like an animal’s in the beam of Mother’s flashlight. Biscuit crumbs clung to his mouth, and around his shoulders was the old blanket he’d secreted away. I reached down to help him up, but he shrank from me, his eyes filled with hatred.

Sister Sadie

The Worlds Are Unstable By Nature

It snowed three nights in a row, the first heavy snowfall in Livorno in more than twenty years. The Red Brigade, angered by US. involvement in Vietnam, were busy that month spray painting US GO HOME in jagged red letters all over the American-owned cars in town.

Daddy

Oh, Anthony

She squints into the afternoon sun to avoid the cop’s eyes as he leans against the open screen door. “All right, Maria,” he says, squaring his shoulders and digging into his pockets like all the cops she’s seen on TV.

Locked Doors

Chopping a door into slivers; sitting two seats back, one row over to his right; being swept up by an undertow