The Dhow House

Nothing now in the weeds and litter to interest her, and her whole life consisting of her own disappointment: helpless against the arrival of her bad temper, she kicked a crushed Red Stripe can at her feet.

“Sweet keys of sun in the dusk of the toaster,” Anna said one morning at breakfast. I looked up at her, briefly, but made nothing of it, distracted as I was with the morning paper. The day continued quietly as we went about our routines, and other things she said didn’t cause concern. But in the afternoon, as she came in from the garden and wiped h