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Don’t Go Home/I Like You Right Here
Anna: hi Matt: Hey Why just “hi”? Anna: am i that transparent Matt: Stop. What’s going on? Anna: Why didn’t you stay? Matt: What do you mean? huh? Anna: … Matt: I’m not playing dumb, Anna. Help me out...
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Chilmark Pond
We put our bags down at the doorway, and all I’m thinking is, Can this really help anything? Can anything really help? The house looks out onto Chilmark Pond and, just further beyond sightline, the...
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Down Here, Nobody Knows This Place Exists
I think about all the conversations we’ve had on this bench, even though we’ve never sat on this bench before. Today, you asked me if we were ever happy. Filed under: memoir
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Under Arbors
I flagged you down as I sat under the tree, waving my hand, flipping it, almost as if I were shoeing you away. But I didn’t need to do it, because I knew you’d seen me from nearly a block away. This is...
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A Portrait of My Mother
My mother has never been like the other mothers. She has always worn more makeup and different clothes, and she has never been very good at cooking dinner, or signing permission slips, or making...
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Eight Days Later
I don’t worry, but eight days later the thought crosses my mind, much in the way that it occurs to me to tell my mother that we’ve run out of toilet paper in the bathroom, or that I’d like to try a...
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Brooklyn Bridge Is Falling Down
If she drops off her child wearing inorganic rubber-soled shoes, they will notice. If she feeds him one fewer leaf of kale, they will notice. If she comes one minute later than she did yesterday, they...
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Checkmate
The thing about it all is that we were children. That’s the thing about everything that happens during those years—you grow up, and then you look back, and everything shifts in this way that you can’t...
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Maura: Outside Session 1
I chose her because looked young. Because she’s young, and probably because she’s Jewish. Steinhauser. Jewish, I think. Jewish people are okay with abortions. This is the only choice for Tiffany, and...
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Rachel: June 19
A good wife will not forget her mise en place. My last session cancels for the day, so I decide the effort for dinner will be paramount tonight. Purchases at the Longington Organicist included...
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Dial Tones
Text her when she is lonely. Text her when she is scared. Text her when the Korean lady tells her she has waited to long to wax her upper lip. Text her when she swiped her card for a cab to sleep with...
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Tiffany: Thoughts on Mr. Rose
I’d fantasized exactly once about Mr. Rose. The fantasy, if you can call it that—the thought—it went like this: We were out to dinner, at some restaurant that doesn’t exist, or maybe it does, I don’t...
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Tiffany: Gossip
There is a big picture collage of college campuses that covers the wall behind my computer: historic New England architecture framed by trees turning fall’s most brilliant orange and red hues; gigantic...
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Sweet Dreams
She pushed the covers down from around her throat and turned to him. “It was a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from,” she said. “Then go back to sleep,” he said. Filed under: fiction
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Rachel: Ian’s Return
On Thursday morning around ten-thirty, I hear the lock on the front door undoing. My stomach clenches up from my position at the kitchen table, where I am at my laptop doing some insurance paperwork. I...
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Getaway Car
A conscious decision not to take a step forward. Beware, I tell myself. Caution is the only thing I have. Don’t look at him, I tell myself. Everyone gets here, right? Fear is just fear, right? Go, he...
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Vows
We lie next to each other in bed and both stare up at the ceiling. My thumb keeps running over my naked ring finger. I am counting each of my breaths. I start counting each of Ian’s. This is how we...
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The Flight
“Again, this is sweet, but insane,” Ian says as he rubs his eyes and shifts in the passenger seat. “My company pays for every cab ride I even think about taking, let alone take.” “This is different,” I...
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