Angel is holding the worm down flat on top of the wall, and then she lifts one of her fingers and pushes it down hard in its middle, pressing, until it splits in two. One half tries to wriggle away…

We were on the edge of an Ohio summer, spring rain still clinging to our skin. A morning breeze cooled my neck as I pressed my sweating back against the glass front door. “You can walk straight ahe…

My parents told me that once I pass my driving test, they will buy me a used car for senior year of high school, which will be awesome. I’m not the most popular kid and, while I don’t want to use t…

He arrived at Hester’s door wearing a red coat with no shirt, dirt-streaked sweatpants, and rubber boots printed with white giraffes. He gripped the boy by the arm—painfully, Hester imagined. The b…

Paris, December 1940 Six-year-old Elisabeth sat with her nanny, Magda, and her teddy bear, Monsieur Flaubert, at Le Relais de la Tour, a small brasserie next to the Eiffel Tower. Elisabeth hoped Mo…

I’m sitting at Allen’s kitchen table while he assembles ingredients for a fiber-laden bread guaranteed to optimize intestinal motility. My brother’s kitchen, like the rest of his house, is as order…

My mother pulls up to the curb of the penitentiary in the same scratched minivan from my childhood, the one with a pungent stale grease and cigarette smell that clings to the cushions. A man with t…

Sebastian hadn’t changed, not really, despite his haggard look. The years weren’t kind, but that charisma, that sense he could be trusted, remained. It’s what drew so many of us to him when we were…

There was so much news—who was going out with who, what the new kids were like. People were breaking up and going out with other people. There were boy-girl parties. Seven minutes in heaven. …

When? It was always a question of when. Today, I saw my son’s eyes pop with crimson veins and his tongue sag so long it fell past his chin; I got the answer.

It started with a family game night, but it would end with murder. Dad wasn’t home, and nothing had been set on the large hardwood table in the family room. Max was getting high in his room, Pamela…

He arrived at Hester’s door wearing a red coat with no shirt, dirt-streaked sweatpants, and rubber boots printed with white giraffes. He gripped the boy by the arm—painfully, Hester imagined. The b…

“Oh, God, not another bowl of chili.” Gary stood staring at the leftovers he’d pulled from the fridge. Single Gary. Not Gary and Amanda, but just Gary. Amanda was a great cook. The problem wa…

When? It was always a question of when. Today, I saw my son’s eyes pop with crimson veins and his tongue sag so long it fell past his chin; I got the answer.

“Dispatch, send an additional unit. I have a woman, late twenties acting erratic, with pills in the front seat, likely an addict.” “Please advise, what is your location?” I have her pulled over on …

Angel is holding the worm down flat on top of the wall, and then she lifts one of her fingers and pushes it down hard in its middle, pressing, until it splits in two. One half tries to wriggle away…

Myra and Leon were best friends at the Scharome Manor for Seniors in Brooklyn, New York. They were inseparable. “Oh, you kids!” the nursing staff used to joke good-naturedly. But they weren’t kids.…

December found me on leave from Germany, visiting my hometown of Cincinnati. A longtime friend had invited me to a Christmas party at her home, a beautiful two-story brick house built in the 1880s.…

My dad raced modifieds every Friday night at Durrant Speedway, a half-mile oval with the smoothest asphalt in all of New Hampshire. Smoother than the one in Loudon, even. Mom thinks he’d still be r…

Besides the common aversion to spiders, heights, and tight spaces, I have other unusual fears—clowns and ice cream trucks. Perhaps the worst scenario would be a clown driving an ice cream truck. Th…