1

It was nine o’clock when Chuy Sandoval called home. After a long day, Chuy had a few drinks at Rico’s and thought better of driving. He was far too tired to walk. His wife teased him a little, then rattled down there in her old station wagon and picked him up.

“I’m glad you called me,” Teresa said. “It’s good you didn’t drive.”

“I couldn’t drive if you paid me,” Chuy said. (read on…)

The rains came early. We are supposed to be back in Durban, but it’s been bucketing for three days and we can’t get out of the game reserve. I’m suffocating in this one-room tourist rondavel. It’s bad enough sharing the room with Ray and Frank, my sixty-five year old bird-watching identical twin uncles. They’re glued together like two old women. They sleep on the floor. Then there’s my brother Pete and his wife Clare, endlessly bickering. They have one of the single beds. Then there’s me and my husband, Nick. We have the other single bed. Our flight back to Detroit is in two days. We’ll miss it. I walk out the door, trying to get some space. Trying to not yell at everyone to shut the fuck up. Rain pours off the thatch, a sheet of water between me and the storm. Pete follows me, hangdog, trying to get me to talk to him. He’s my big brother but sometimes you wouldn’t know it. I refuse to look at him. (read on…)

Everybody always says that I left Meagan at the altar, but that’s simply not true. I left her on the living room couch.

She was staying at her mother’s house that weekend – she thought it would make the wedding night more special – but she was, incredibly enough, the only one home when I went by the morning after the rehearsal dinner. I wasn’t prepared for how blonde she would look when she opened the door. (read on…)

Call Me When You Land

Chapter 1

He’s found dead in Nevada.

“Your information was in his Camelbak,” the deputy says.

Katie holds the line. Last she heard Craig was in Montana. A few months ago he’d sent them a sunny postcard from Bridger Bowl. He usually sends one or two a year. She’s always sorry as she pushes those cards under C.J.’s door, but she doesn’t want to be one of those mothers who hides the father from the child.

The deputy clears his throat.

“Where?” she finally asks, removing her smock. She stands up and rinses her dirty paint brushes. (read on…)

My thermostat is set a 68 degrees and the cold taps my nose, making it run. The Wisconsin wind of winter snaps my neighbor’s flag at the dark sky, am and pm indistinguishable in January. I drag my little girl from bed every morning and bundle her in turtle neck sweaters, hugs, and wool.

I think of this as I watch the morning news and gulp my steaming coffee. (read on…)