Jun 14, 2019
How to Be a Family
A married couple and their twin sons weather the heartbreaks and savor the joys of family life over decades in this novella.
A married couple and their twin sons weather the heartbreaks and savor the joys of family life over decades in this novella.
They all were going around trying to prove themselves, litigating the case for their own worth: Look at me, look at me, look at me—I matter, don’t I?
Who is there? I called when a spell of quiet passed, though I already had my guess, an automated sighting notice having gone out last week.
You’re safe now, said the plates, the walls, the glasses, even the golden chandelier that I hadn’t noticed before.
Your near-life experiences have coalesced in this momentary identity. You are a woman speeding along I-10 with a caged green-cheeked conure chirping by her side.
When you disappeared, three nights ago, I told them you were up north, visiting your mother. Why should I tell them different?
I decide to put the plant in the ground the next time we stop, to insist that something I’ve loved will survive me.
They tell me that my new job is to chisel a deep and lasting crack into the foundation of American democracy.
The man in the fur hat warned me things might be different after we crossed the time barrier—that my presence might confound, even frighten those who’d forgotten me.
“We need more soft bedding; everything now is hopelessly stained. We need better antiemetics. We need a miracle, and somebody to say so. It’s not going to be him.”
Her mother had never curved a cool hand around Marilinda’s cheek and promised, Mijita, your life will be swollen with love.
“I don’t believe in ghosts, but you have a reputation for helping troubled properties.”
I knew how these small moments could accumulate over time, threading back to one another, changing how you behaved in the world.
The day the women left, Clary followed her mother to the water’s edge. She would’ve followed her under, too, if the other daughters hadn’t been there to hold her back.
There are times you have legs. Mostly, you do not. You smile with teeth grown sharp from gnawing at chains that refuse to release.
Floating on her back, she imagines what’ll happen if she starts bleeding right then and there.
On this train ride back to his beginnings, Shettima’s mind overtook the train to another river in his memory, a river long and meandering as his days.
I started to wonder how the hell she’d found me after all these years, but I was starting to realize that any chicken with the amount of determination I was seeing now would hardly be deterred from tracking me down.
She has taken back a vintage Pac Man pinball machine, gold teeth, and hair extensions. She has taken back virginity and faith in God. But can she take something back from the shadow of a woman she loved?
Of course there was no best. Of course they were the same. I wanted to win in any case.
