More on: Fiction

Lauren was waiting for the holy word of God. It was spring. Whatever.

So much wine—wine with food and wine without, wine while they watched the kids play in the yard and when it was just the women together on a Monday night.

When I sit here alone, notebook lying open on my writing desk, I find I become someone other than the person I am when walking about or sitting in company or even sleeping.

In the garden, love is dirt and rain: through every wet blossoming Joanna hears children singing—

Eileen felt that she should deliver the news of her brother’s death in person. She knew she would provide no solace when the time came, that her presence would only heighten the reality of Brandon’s absence; yet her mother was nearing seventy.

Later, looking at his partially closed eyes, she suddenly remembered a creole word from the country where she had spent her childhood. Sodade. A mixture of nostalgia, tenderness, and yearning, a sense of the fragility of happiness.

Jonah was on the lookout for enemies everywhere, just like his late father, whose vigilance ultimately proved prophetic if futile.

She was pretty sure she was too crazy to be a mother, and when the yearnings showed up, every few years, they now passed quickly.

When fiction leaves questions unanswered