Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

He remembered Ruth telling him about post-traumatic stress disorder, back when she still thought things could be different. He laughed at that: post-trauma! Anyone who named it that didn’t really understand it. There is no post. There’s only trauma. Over and over. Time moves on, but you stay there forever. No wonder there was no treatment. How do y

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The dreams were there. Many of us held on for so long, clutching those dreams through one loss and disappointment after another. We flew in the face of reality, shaking these dreams at the truth, refusing to believe or accept anything less. But one day the truth caught up to us and refused to be put off any longer. This wasn’t what we wanted, plann

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I imagine some mythic women in floral dresses who simply slide into motherhood, goddesses unbothered by the smell of poop, at home in any damp cave. These are the “naturals”: the mom on a transatlantic flight handling three small children, or the unwashed breastfeeding mom who says she wouldn’t mind “another one.” But then there are others, such as... See more

While she walked, Sylvie discovered that she wasn’t surprised by the diagnosis. It settled so quickly inside her that she realized she must have known, on some level, that it was coming. When the specialist had used the word incurable, she’d thought: Of course. That sounds right. Whenever something went wrong in her house while she was growing up—t

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