Livia Clark Claire Claire is waiting for me on the townhouse steps, wearing a green dress. “That’s not what you told me you’d wear,” I say. The block is lined with budding lindens and shabby, enormous rowhouses. Claire’s dress has thin straps and it’s obvious she isn’t wearing a bra. “Hi to you too,” she […]
Category: Summer 2023 Fiction
Kayla Rutledge -The Elizabeths
Kayla Rutledge The Elizabeths On Sundays, from ninety-two different front rows in ninety-two different sanctuaries, pastor’s wives listen to a sermon we’ve already heard. We’ve talked it through over cereal bowls, picked the inky remains of notes from our laundry machines, heard the preacher mumble Hallelujah! in his sleep. Six days a week, our husbands […]
Sophie Paquette – Anyway, You’re Here
Sophie Paquette Anyway, You’re Here Already my mom is rustling through her vitamin cabinet. Mel and I call this the apothecary. I don’t want to make it sound like she’s some rare bird who raised me to be strange. She just doesn’t trust doctors, and if she could, she’d open me up herself to see […]
Wendy BooydeGraaff – Soap and Water
Wendy BooydeGraaff Soap and Water Start with the glasses, the thinnest ones first: crystal liqueur glasses etched with flowers, even if they’ve been used after dinner, are most delicate so they go in first; the long-stemmed wine glasses, the thin-walled water goblets, follow. One by one, never two in the suds at the same time. […]
