Kate is learning how to cry. Her teacher, a bald man with skinny fingers, says, “Think of every sad thing that’s ever happened to you.” He stands close enough that she smells the peppermint on his breath. Her mouth waters. Kate is in front of class, her damp back against the green room …

    The bag was heavy, causing her to shift her weight from side to side. She didn’t want to put it down because that meant stopping, waiting. She needed to be in motion. She had been sleepless the night before, dozing for minutes at a time before opening her eyes, her mind rivers and …

Content advisory: This story contains references to sexual assault.     Rosalind Peters had been living without her body for so long that she was unsure of what she would find when she finally decided to coax it out of her basement. It hid there, buried among the party clothes she had thrown down the …

    I always knew something about Matthew De Groot wasn’t right, but the sandbox episode clinched it. On his knees, nose near the ground, he dug with both hands, the way a determined dog might ravage a garden. Sand from each new hole filled the previous one. Thick brown dirt coated the heel and …

Content advisory: This story contains depictions of substance abuse and child neglect.     It was with her when she sat up in bed that morning. Swinging her feet to the floor, Zoe felt her stomach clench. Nausea washed over her. She closed her eyes, willing the feeling to pass, ignoring the skittering of pain …

    Until the trespassers appeared and forever altered Kathleen and Ed Beckman’s past and present lives, the couple had never considered divorce. If asked, Kathleen would have said her marriage was immutable. Ed, after thirty-four years of simmering satisfaction, hadn’t given an alternative a moment’s thought. It had been an autumn afternoon when Kathleen …

    I. We didn’t have a woodshed or children, so I found my monster bent over a swing on an abandoned playset behind my house. His weight bent the top bar into a rusty smile and his knees and elbows were hollow from swinging in the dirt. I don’t understand why this is fun, …