The Boy with Two Birthdays

The boy with two birthdays was born on both December 6 and December 7. As with so many questions that perplex not him but those who feel they must render verdicts, the date depends on who defines birth,

Overpromised Heart

I promised my daughter my heart, forgetting it wasn’t mine. You were there, fat with her, already weary of the burden and beautiful, intolerably beautiful. You made demands: a hairbrush, a mirror, not that hairbrush, ice yes but not ice chips, a delivery date—

Fat with Promise

I cried on the elevator, then over lunch and later at my desk. It’s funny now. They call me Weeping Will. Weeping Will stands looking at people who know him and though nothing they do is different today

Ghostly

On the edge of my bed, his outline brightened by moonlight, his profile sharp and reassuring just as it was, then later at the market his round shoulder turning, hawk’s brow silent and still, his little cap tipped so familiarly, thereafter whenever I need him,

How You Will Live Your Life

The kids formed a new government yesterday after the briefest of campaigns. “Who’s bigger?” was one campaign pledge. “I’ll tell Mom,” was another. Ballots were cast verbally, sometimes face-down in the carpet, and claims of voter intimidation were resolved internally by the poll boss.

A Christmas Sort of Story

You are not an accident, little one. You were in my care even before you were born. You have a place inside me still and always will. I have big plans for you, little one, plans as grand as galaxies and as unfathomable, but they mean nothing.

Secret School

Our neighborhood had leafy lanes and wide sidewalks and neighbors—not just people who lived next door—and no kindergarten. There weren’t enough five- and six-year-olds together to fill a classroom; fifth and sixth grades had been combined and third was on the cut list.

Surprise Ending

I’ve seen this movie fifty-nine times, but that’s not why it knows me. It’s set in a country that’s not my own, at a time I can only imagine. Mysterious things happen to families unlike families I know—still mysterious on a sixtieth viewing, though I know everything that will happen, and when, and every line.

The Hero

All but deaf to thunderstorms and smoke alarms, nothing seems to wake him, but the guttural rasps of our breathing and the rhythmic creaking of the box spring rouse him from his bed and lead him padding in his footsies to the primal scene.

What Melted

It’s understood the truth can not be told. At best we see what passes by the peephole, a monocled distortion barely glimpsed through a fog of curved glass, apprehended but incommunicable.