Missing Words

But he didn’t want to remember all the times his father had doted on Lydia but stared at him with disappointment flaring in his eyes, all the times their mother had praised Lydia but looked over and past and through him, as if he were made of air. He wanted to savor the long-awaited letter, the promise of getting away at last, a new world waiting a

She draws in her breath: a husband who groomed her as a fourteen-year-old child; a narcissistic mother; two problematic children; and brushes with social services. But the compelling things feel precious somehow, half-formed and delicate, not yet ready for the judgment of her husband.

He read the suicide story twice against the racket of steel blades grinding single estate beans. Something rankled. There was a prolonged and dangerous-sounding hissing, and a solitary stream of espresso poured into a white cup. Edward Fellowes jumped from the bridge late on Thursday night. But there were any number of bridges along the Tyne, why w

The air outside rumbles as planes lift into the sky, while inside garbled announcements blare over the loudspeaker. Somewhere behind me, an older woman speaks in sharp, staccato Italian. But I don’t look away from the curb, my eyes trained on the crowded sidewalk outside the terminal, searching for her, anchoring my belief—and my entire future—on t