The cardinal landed in the crabapple that was still draped in wet, spring snow, and it was something about the weight of the bird, the way the branch bent under it, that made Brea stand up and go for the shotgun. A few weeks ago, it had been a butterfly, which had followed her inside…

I. Allergies Maartje Dijkstra lives in a squeaky-clean apartment whose surfaces are scrubbed daily by the hands of others. Her legitimate excuse: she’s allergic to dust, pollen, mold, hairs, and latex. At the high-rise office near the Rotterdam port, she works in a private cubicle with squeaky-clean linoleum floors and glass partitions. The rest of…

My great-grandmother smoked two or three packs of Camels a day and lived to be ninety-four. A rank, collapsed, shambling ninety-four with a mole smack in the middle of her cheek, like a worry stone, but she had a full head of blue-white hair in big natural curls and waves, like its own smoke from…

On Saturday Daniel Morgenthau decided to stop eating. He made no formal announcement; he was not one to make a fuss. He’d quit smoking almost fifty years ago much the same way. Didn’t finish his pack but left it on the kitchen table, forgotten, until Muriel smoked them herself and complained at their taste. She…

Robbie is lanky and pallid. He keeps rocking onto his toes like there is something to see over the heads of the volunteers crowding the sidewalk. He asks me what I think we should do. Let’s talk to that guy in the red vest, I say, but before we can reach him, the guy dashes…

1. Spent After they fucked for the first time, their faces still stinging from the sleet coming down outside, she said, “That was lovely.” She said it again the next day and that night. She would say it whenever they fucked. When brow was lifted from brow, when knees fell slack, when toes curled or…

The baby is born at home. This isn’t planned. In a blizzard in Wisconsin, she slips out of her mother and is wrapped, a slush of vernix and blood, in a white towel. The mother’s womb begins to pulse, again, trying to get back to its place in her empty belly, like it was before.…

Snow is falling in our bedroom and Arden is crying. I’m kneeling naked at the foot of the mattress, pointing a flashlight at the ceiling. “Well?” my wife says. She’s sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, cradling our month-old daughter. “I’ll get up,” I say. I stand on the bed with my head bent…

I like to work when it’s dark. When the morning rush starts, half my day is over. From the ovens I glimpse customers’ tired bored faces as they wait in line to start their day. At least I don’t have to deal with them. Too many customers have unrealistic expectations. My muffin isn’t golden enough,…

On behalf of women, don’t share the story your friend just emailed you about her fight with her husband. There is nothing to gain by it; any half-intelligent person would realize that any discussion of this matter with another husband, yours, is going to fall into gender divisions. Men stick up for each other. Besides,…

He opened his hand to reveal the peach pit he’d found under her pillow that morning. It rested dry and dull against his wedding ring. His other hand dropped from a pat on Lalo’s shoulder to a suggestive caress of her hip through her nightdress. She felt her skin retract against the bone but didn’t…

There were six of them — none taller than five feet or shorter than three feet. They were a pack of black eyes and bloody lips and spiky hair. Every time Walcott drove by them he looked the other way — he never wanted any trouble. He just wanted to go home, eat dinner, and…