I’m going to paint your house white. I know you probably wanted some other color — yellow or gray or spearmint or something. But that’s too bad. I only do white. And don’t make any dumb presidential jokes either.
Go ahead, get somebody else. I have a waiting list fifty names long for my services. Actors, […]

During my forty-fifth summer I did not leave the house. I was stuck in a depression as thick as tar. I had driven my wife and sons away with my habit of questioning their loyalties and predicting their deaths. I was all alone with their old unwanted things — grade school report cards, my wife’s […]

We both took our names from things that cut right through you. At first no one took us seriously, because I was a girl and Windchill was Windchill, but I knocked a few heads and pretty soon we had a little gang together. The gang was other kids like us, who had been kicked out […]

Dear Lizzy,
All is well here in the Amazon. I apologize for the gap in my correspondence — Brazelton was taken ill with malaria, but after a few weeks of quinine he is quite himself again. He was an inspiration to me during his illness, maintaining his sweet disposition and his keen mind even when the […]

I stayed up all night with Ruby, and by four a.m. I believed her. There was a giant cloud with a huge gnashing mouth above our house; we had to board up all the windows and doors. I helped her get plywood from the basement. Her teddy bear nightgown was soaked with sweat. We […]

You’ve heard this story before — it showed up in our yard one snowy evening, we thought it was a dog. The kids fell in love with it right away, and only when we took it in for shots did we find out it was a wolf. The vet looked grave. She said if I […]

We learned about her through the mail, forlorn letters that came to our house every few months with “Elizabeth Zero” printed on the envelope. My husband didn’t feel right throwing the mail away, so we kept it in a little pile in case Elizabeth Zero ever came to visit her old house.
Soon we found she’d […]

The first day I swore off sleep, it kept sneaking up on me, purring like a cat, stroking like a lover. I had to pour cold water on my head and eat five hot peppers, one right after another.
The second day there was so much time. When you’re awake for 48 hours, new […]

When I was three months old, my mom put me on the 24 bus. She just reached in the open door, set me on the steps, and walked off down 15th St. The bus driver finished out his shift while the passengers passed me back and forth among them, cooing at my perfect toes, my […]

Just once, to go out alone.