It was the band’s first show, at a house party up in the hills about a twenty-minute drive away from the city. It was a three-bedroom house being rented out by seven college kids. They were hosting the party and had asked the band to play. They’d talked to the bass player via text message,…

Alice Beck’s girlfriend had started to forget things. Where she went and what she did. Who she called and what they said. “What do you mean you don’t remember?” Alice Beck would ask after she came home from work. Alice Beck would eat dinner and pepper her girlfriend with questions as if she were preparing…

I heard it was for the Royes next door, for their daughter’s wedding, possibly a nice little present from the girl’s brother who worked abroad, some construction job in Dubai, or loading trucks in Manila, that brown packet the slightly forgetful postman hurled across their fence gate though it was properly locked, and their puppy…

My uncle, Mario, was two people. During the day, he was Mario. Undisputed king of the dad joke. A middle-aged weirdo of minor repute. Think Tony Danza if Tony Danza were brown as fuck, installed drywall, and took minutes at the local Sasquatch sighting club. But at night, he was Yelton John, the leader of…

They know what’s coming when their dad slams the front door. Their eyes squint, they scatter. Their dad finds them, lines them up, and spanks them by the most hysterical to the most stoic. The loudest ones cry, “We didn’t do anything.” And he says the same thing, “This is for general principles.” Their dad…

At least, that’s what she tells Mom and me three weeks after Dad leaves on a shiny September Sunday, nicking the corner of our mailbox as he peels out of the drive, exhaust fumes roaring through the ancient muffler like rocket fuel in his wake. My sister tells us he’s gone back to his home…

When Jackie put the cigarette between her lips, a decade disappeared. “Been a while,” Tara said. Jackie pulled her knees to her chest and leaned into the give of her plastic chair. “Feels like we’re back in high school.” “If we were back in high school, we’d be smoking bots behind Gabe Beresford’s garage.” Jackie…

Lisa had been surprised at how hard fawns could suckle at a bottle. Their needy yanks moved their necks like swans. She loved watching the look on their faces as the glugs of warm formula went down their throats, stray drops beading on their muzzles. This first-thing-in-the-morning task at the wildlife rescue Lisa had been…

Carla, the waiting room pro, shuffled through the coffee table offerings and brought back three magazines. She offered me one. I couldn’t read a word, but flicked through the pictures of aspirational houses, aspirational bodies. “Remember those real-life tragedy movies we watched with Gran?” I said. “Mm?” Carla was trying to silently rip out a…

The twins, Dash and Promise, came of age in the long part of the war, when it was for them a train extending in both directions forever, no beginning or end in sight. It was a time they lived with their mother in a moss-stained, manufactured home hung off the western skirt of the Cascades,…

The gardens are overgrown. It’s the first thing I notice when we pull up the drive — ragwort choking lilies, roses climbing faded brick. It is late September, the year I turn twenty, and Dad has spent the entire ride from the Greyhound station talking business. He manages the regional branch of a freight company…

Father stood in the corner of the kitchen between the cupboard where Mum kept the pans and the sink where she spent her time washing those same pans and then filling them with water to boil the vegetables. Tasks the house robots could have easily performed had she wanted them to. Father didn’t actually stand,…