In my mind I could hear the phone ringing, but my eyes were fixated on the first page of a chapter in my thesis that needed work. All I could think about was how sick I was of that thesis. It all seemed pointless. None of the contents of this two hundred–page document was going to change the world in the slightest way . . .
They say she was buried alive. Rufina Cambaceres was a great beauty on the eve of her nineteenth birthday when a friend whispered in her ear a terrible secret: Rufina’s beloved fiancé was having an affair with Rufina’s own mother. Rufina collapsed to the floor. Three doctors declared her dead; they did not know her heart still beat, however slowly.
She was interred until a few days later, when workers heard her scream. When they unburied her there were scratches on her face and on the coffin lid from her attempts to escape. They were too late to save her. Her mother then had her laid above ground in a white marble mausoleum, her coffin behind a glass wall so that if the lid should ever rise again, everyone could see . . .
I’ve maxed out my credit cards. I got fired. I only leave the house for organic food—and yoga . . .
On September 11th of this year, we drove our thirteen-year-old daughter to a boarding school for children with learning differences.
It was the second-worst day in memory. The first was when she was three months old and the pediatrician told me she had fragile X syndrome . . .
“Mum! What did you do with my curling iron?”
Trinh’s voice tumbles down the staircase. There is an uncomfortable silence at the table as Leah avoids the glances of her friends . . .
I started by speed walking, then high-stepping, then flat-out mad dashing. I knew that my increasing anger was irrational.
Really, if you leave twenty bucks and a crackhead alone in your room, it’s your own damn fault! . . .
It cut through me like a knife. Not a sharp one—quick and hot and over immediately, no. That would have been too simple. Jacob’s first meltdown was more like a dull, rusted blade that sawed its way back and forth over my heart . . .
The riffraff of Tompkins Square wear wool jackets in the humid night, perhaps in defiance of the elements. The squirrels aren’t panhandling as usual. They’re preoccupied with something in the weeds behind a bench, what looks to your eye like a mangled piece of bread or a crumpled paper bag. A closer look reveals a human hand . . .