The cat drags herself into the room where my husband and I are talking about what’s to be done. When she drags herself away, my husband hangs his head and weeps. I hear his tears smacking the hardwood floor. “Oh, baby,” I say. He apologizes and I say he has nothing to apologize for which […]

  His grandmother died. It was summer—late summer—and he lived in Rhode Island, where he’d been to the beach only twice since July. It wasn’t a big deal; grandmothers passed. This was what they did. It wasn’t a parent but someone over one hundred years old, her mind soft now, her speech ever-pregnant with questions. She […]