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What I really meant to say is that I am tired. Beauty can demand so much.

The door opened, and Dan stormed in, shouting, “Motherfuckers!”

You couldn’t believe what the rhododendrons do around here.

Her mother is a locked door with another door behind it.

I was only five when Dad told me I had died. “You drowned,” he said.

All my life I wondered what it is to vanish like a ring of smoke.

Rain falls steadily, rattling down drainpipes and gurgling into gutters.

“Wanna give it a go?” my brother asks, nudging me with his 12-gauge.

Her husband is away at the family cabin, and she is glad for the space.

Mama would say beware of the little flaws that make one homely.

Amy put her arm around his shoulders. My boy. Isn’t he wonderful?

A small circle of friends and family babysat so she could go to school.

We need to stop talking about it, we need to put some pants on.

The Others came in the light of day and splayed Father open.

Design a way to kill those rats, and do it now, Fiori, do it now.

She had yellow cat eyes that she insisted were also blond.

Louise watched from the shadow. She was looking for somewhere to land.

Best-selling author Melanie Gideon reads from her novel Wife 22.

The light is like a benediction. My husband reaches for my hand.

We’re stuck floating around on the surface of our lives like kids in a pool.

The nights she and Wade have sex she can’t do so without feeling guilty.

At the core, a daughter is a self-reckoning emptiness.

“Fuck you,” I said, but it was hard to say it with any meaning.

Her cheek was like a plum about to burst and you had to close your eyes.

As a child I wanted to behold the elusive squid, the patience of eels.

She was painting a bedroom, trying to be a good mother, wife, Catholic.

Dr. Zee knows his son is struggling up out of some chemical fog.