Louisa went to work every day. I woke Gennie up whatever time I came over, cutting summer school, and we spent the next few hours deciding what she would wear, and who we were going to be for the world on that particular day. If we did not have something suitable, we stitched and pinned an assortment of wide skirts and kerchiefs into place. Since G

Gracie tipped the jar toward me. “Try some, baker.” The gesture was solicitous, but her eyes glinted challenge. In every legend of the underworld, there is the same warning: Don’t eat the food. Not before you know what’s happening and/or what bargain you’re accepting. Along the length of the table, wide dishes bobbed up and down, orbiting on curren

Then the hazy buzz of summer saunters in, and the air screeches and hums. Cicada-killing wasps catch the weakest and stab them motionless, hauling the weight of their bodies and their glass wings up and up and somewhere else. Fireflies drunkenly dazzle the dark. The leaves are full, dark green, the trees dense and folded in on themselves, catching

He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman.