1. The man who wasn’t there to buy furniture appeared my first week on the job. This was odd, because the store I worked at sold furniture, and because…

  The inferno blew and blew. It rose above the trees and spread outward like villainous arms across the porches of the neighbors’ houses. The cries of an engulfed dog…

  We play games in the backseat, the children and me. Is it bigger than a breadbox? Smaller than a house? Everyone’s a good sport before lunchtime but, by afternoon,…

  Because I am not Dave’s wife, I hold my ear to his daughter’s chest every day, when the other children are quiet, sleeping. I think of her as his…

  I.   There were no paved roads in Mbuzini until President Samora’s plane crashed into our mountain. Now I watch the taxis snake their way up to the monument…

  My mom must’ve told me Leslie was pregnant a couple of months after we broke up, but I didn’t know how pregnant. I tried not to think about it,…

  By the time the hearse pulled up to where the dead corporal was to be buried, Private Crane felt as if the rubber soles of his jump boots had…

  The bookstore café was lit by lamps on tables, the big windows at the front beaded with condensation that acted like a blind, dimming the afternoon light. Sylvia had…

  Spring   What passes for weather is cold and slick, the spit and runnel of raindrops. Padilla Bay reflects early sprigs of forsythia, yellow spikes bouncing on stems. A…

  Stevie and I, we live in Fischel’s attic now. It’s small but we don’t need much. There’s room enough for a wobbly nightstand and a chair we’ve piled over…

  Elkie trusts Don absolutely. He’s a cross between a boyfriend and a father, though Elkie knows boyfriends and fathers aren’t supposed to be the same thing, and he’s not…

  The officials have asked us to redo the museum: walking through the ruins of the Greek settlement, they poke at the stones with their feet, render instructions to me…