Orlando’s mother, Grace, once said she’d make a terrible liar. I know why she said this. Her face showed her every emotion. I have never had that problem myself.…

  My great-grandfather’s grandfather bought the island and built the house. Before that, the island was nobody’s. There was evidence of Indians, great piles of clamshells near the southern tip,…

  Once upon a time, you and I climbed out the front window of the second story where I lived and onto the roof of the porch. We blinked and…

  There is a photograph of our father in an olive drab T-shirt and jungle fatigues, his still-plentiful hair clipped close to his head. He’s crouched on a bald knob…

  JP is dreaming and Carlos is in the dream. They’re back in the desert, walking toward a road. In the last two weeks, three Humvees have been blown up…

  Three snowy egrets. The birds floated through the viewfinder. Stillness. I turned north, drove hard a thousand miles back to where I’d lived my entire life at the bottom…

  Two points: my math teacher Mr. Umbec died two years ago. I gave his dog a home. I’m not sure of Quad’s age or whether I should think of…

  When he arrives, she is waiting with her hands painted for another man. He sits at the far end of the sofa, the middle cushion a buffer. But she…

  I’d been leaving my bicycle in the living room since Pam left. Just in case she ever drops back in. There’s a nice tire tread worn into the carpet.…

  Matthew High. We knew it would be him. Even before Hannah turned him over, we just knew it. It was Annie who saw him from the road. “Look,” she…

  Kay leaned on the front porch railing on the north side of her grandparents’ house, flicking peeling paint to the driveway below. The afternoon wind had gone elsewhere, and…

Jerusalem For Asher, a time of confusion, a time of desire. One month, and he had yet to kiss Galina, yet to hold her hand. Their most intimate moments were…