I made the mistake of asking if his dog was a mutt, but he informed me that no, his dog was not a mutt. His dog was an Entlebucher Mountain Dog. Do you know the Bernease Mountain Dogs? he asked. Yes. He sort of looks like one. I bent and tried to pet the dog, […]

At six o’clock, a dozen women sit in a circle of chairs. Their purses, backpacks and briefcases are on the floor near high heels, hiking boots, sneakers. This is how the women are different. This is how the women are the same. They have bony wrists, sharp shoulders, screaming collarbones. Their clothes are too loose, […]

  You look at the Blackberry Samantha threw into your hands after explaining the rules. “If you forget what you can and can’t do, the rules are in the phone,” you remember Samantha saying as she left your apartment. Samantha didn’t tell you much about the how, just what she needed to break up your […]

On Sundays, after we go to church, Daddy lets me help him wash the van in the driveway, soap sponges in buckets, slather them on the hood, the doors, the windows. He cleans the roof, the areas I can’t reach, and shows me how to press my thumb against the water stream on the hose, […]