More on: Fiction

Twenty years ago, we brought the first child home. We held him, and the silence before us then was the deep, vast thrum of all we didn’t know. We were here, suddenly parents. The silence weighed down the air like boulders on silk. And then, of course, he cried.

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.