I am ten years old. I would have been ten years old yesterday but that’s when they found Grandma, so I will be ten years old tomorrow or the next day, I expect.
Priya told me that praying to Kali had made her the best mother she could be. I was afraid of Kali; in every photo Priya showed me, she was half-naked with skulls around her neck, blood dripping from her mouth, a head in one hand, a machete in another.
He would take his father to the nice-for-Missoula restaurants that he rarely patronized on his own. It was easy to forget, when he didn’t see him for a while, that he might actually enjoy making him happy.
Too fast for her to restrain it, a sound escaped the wife—a sound so low and guttural the husband hunched over, his hand sliding along the back of her chair.
The stranger beside me texted with a manic quality that was almost sexual in its focus, until she saw the smiling flight attendant walk by again, at which time she placed her phone facedown on her leg.