EXPLORING TROUBLED ROMANCE: A COLLECTION OF STORIES 
By 
CHRISTOPHER EDWARD BRADLEY 
A THESIS 
Presented to the Departments of Creative Writing and English 
And the Honors College of the University of Oregon 
In partial fulfillment of the requirements 
For the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts 
June 2009 
i i  
Copyright 2009 Chris Bradley 
iii 
An Abstract of the Thesis of 
Christopher Edward Bradley for the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
In the Department of English to be taken June 13, 2009 
Title: EXPLORING TROUBLED ROMANCE: A COLLECTION OF STORIES 
This thesis comprises six works of short fiction. These stories are diverse in origin, 
plot, and character, but bound by the theme of threatened romantic relationships. Ad­
mittedly, stories about romance abound; authors fair and poor have made their living 
from them. Part of what makes this collection distinct is the focus I have placed upon 
the craft element of setting, both in outside reading and my own writing. 
iv  
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Laurie Lynn Drummond, my pri­
mary thesis advisor, for her part in shepherding me through the thesis process and the 
short-story jungle. She has provided invaluable feedback on my work, sometimes 
glowing, sometimes not, but always frank. I knew when to take a story back to the 
drawing board, and when I had something special. For this clarity, I am thankful. 
I would also like to thank my secondary advisor, Natasha Sunderland, who has had a 
tremendous positive influence on my writing this year as the leader of my Kidd Tuto­
rial workshop group. She is a wonderful close reader of fiction, and taught me to ap­
ply my analytical English major skills to the realm of craft. She has guided me all year 
long through dozens of drafts, and has never yet run out of things to say. For her deep 
engagement with my work, I am thankful. 
Professor Monique Balbuena has directed me as my Honors College advisor and flic-
sis Prospectus teacher, and I appreciate her now serving as the Honors College Repre­
sentative on my thesis committee. She brings to the table an amazing intellectual en­
ergy and an incredible breadth of knowledge, and I look forward to what she has to 
say about my stories. 
Finally, I would like to thank my family. My grandmother has long shown an interest 
in my own creative interests, buying me books on craft before I ever stepped foot in a 
creative writing class, and my parents have both supported and humored my creative 
inclinations in every way they could. My brother, too, deserves mention here; if he 
had never gone snowshoeing or run away from school and hidden in the bushes, nei­
ther "Shelter" nor "Reaching" would have been the same, and he has further supported 
my writing by inviting me to stay in his vacant cabin in the woods this summer. 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Chapter Page 
I. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION 1 
Annotated Bibliography 16 
II. STORIES 
Reaching 31 
con t>v ^^i ii rv /^~viv  sJU n  
Another Time Capsule 68 
A Christmas Toy 80 
Progression 94 
The Perfect Housewife 112 
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION 
This thesis is the culmination of a lifelong interest in reading and the writing 
and telling of stories. This background in literature has assisted me in the creation of 
this short story collection, but also crucial has been my recent participation in the 
Kidd Tutorial. This one-year comprehensive creative writing program has given me 
the knowledge and tools necessary to transform a hobby into something of academic 
merit. 
Although I will receive my degree in the field of English, the prospect of a tra­
ditional extended essay did not stimulate me intellectually as did the opportunity to 
create my literatuorwe.n M y hope is that with this creative thesis I will make a liter­
ary contribution equivalent to that of an English essay while fostering and exploring 
my artistic inclinations. 
Originally I planned to accomplish this feat by writing a novel, which I began 
in earnest last summer. I did not doubt my ability to finish the book—Wanted: Dead 
Spouse stands at 23,000 words and 77 double-spaced pages, only thirty fewer than 
this thesis—but I started to question the sense in doing so. Committing myself to such 
an extended process while still experiencing the growing pains of a beginning writer 
did not make sense. Just as a grade school student who begins the year in a size five 
shoe may end the year in a seven, I knew I would have outgrown my nascent book by 
its end. 
I am thankful that I transitioned to short stories. Their brevity and versatility 
2 
make them a suitable apprentice medium. As I will discuss below, each story allowed 
me to try new things as well as presented its own specific challenges—a combination 
of opportunity and difficulty that Wallace Stegner remarks upon in the foreword to his 
Collected Stories: "[The short story] seems to me a young writer's form, made tor 
discoveries and nuances and epiphanies and superbly adapted for trial syntheses."1 
After witnessing my own struggles and growth over the past year as I worked on this 
collection, I agree with Stegner's assertion; yet I do not believe I have diminished the 
quality or potency of my work by choosing this "young writer's form." Edgar Allan 
Poe has in fact written that 
the ordinary novel is objectionable ... . As it cannot be read 
at one sitting, it deprives itself... of the immense force de­
rivable from totality. Worldly interests intervening during the 
pauses of perusal modify annul, or counteract... the impres­
sions of the book. In the brief tale, however, during the hour 
of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer's control.2 
The stories that follow investigate how various characters respond when their 
relationships near a breaking point, and what contributes to the survival or further de­
terioration of these relationships. These stories explore the individual duties and bur­
dens that accompany romantic relationships, and what happens when individuals fail 
to fulfill these responsibilities. I have tried not to use my authorial power to direct the 
course of these relationships; my goal was to create the roundest (i.e., most fleshed-
out) characters I could, and then allow their struggles to play out and develop on the 
1 Stegner, Wallace. Collected Stories of Wallace Stegner. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. x. 
2 Poe, Edgar Allan. "On the Prose Tale." The Portable Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. J. Gerald Kennedy. New 
York: Penguin Books, 2006. 533. 
3 
page in whatever way seemed natural to the story. My characters would act for them­
selves, and their relationships would hinge not on any plot device of mine, but on 
their own needs, desires, successes, or deficiencies. I am unsure that I achieved this 
goal in every story, but I came closer with each new story, and with each revision. 
I chose my theme largely because of its universality. Individuals of every 
demographic may experience similar romantic stresses, and this tension can arise in 
seemingly any form at any place or time. During the writing process, this theme's 
breadth assisted me by eliminating nearly all restrictions on subject matter. I could 
just as well write a romance story about a Japanese student studying abroad in Ore­
gon ("Progression") as I could about a mother in Illinois struggling with her daugh­
ter's illness ("Reaching"). Additionally, the effects of romance, good or bad, often 
permeate one's entire life, so this subject seemed an effective point of entrance into 
the lives of my characters. 
My theme has not changed substantially during the course of my thesis, but 
halfway through the project I realized the shortcomings of working with a universal 
theme. Its expansiveness liberated my writing—but this infinitude could also be a 
hindrance. I feared my writing would lose its direction over the course of six stories 
with nothing more to navigate by than romance, and, besides, library and bookstore 
shelves are already full of fiction covering this theme. As the song in Aida observes, 
"Every Story is a Love Story." 
I decided to narrow my approach by focusing on the craft element of setting. A 
quality story requires quality in every element of scene—dialogue, gesture (a charac-
4 
ter's physical actions or movements), thought, description, and action—but setting 
has a special potential to develop and reveal fictional characters, and also to foster 
conflict among them. Traveling, being in an unknown place, being forced into contact 
with strangers or someone disagreeable—all can be sources of tension in a story, and 
ways to explore character relationships. 
Additionally, and most plainly, novelist Elizabeth Bowen has noted that "[n]oth-
ing can happen nowhere" (qtd. in Tindall 10). Some or all of the elements of scene 
listed above can occasionally recede, but setting must remain. We writers need a 
place for our stories, and we demand one, given our own connections to our coun­
tries, hometowns, and homes. In the final chapter of her book Countries of the Mind: 
The Meaning of Place to Writers, Tindall elaborates upon the process of our real-life 
attachment with place materializing in fiction: 
The intimate, almost organic relationship that many people 
have with the buildings that they inhabit, so that the building 
itself becomes symbolically identified with their own flesh 
and bone and thus with their lives, has long been implicitly 
recognised in literary imagery. (221) 
The diction and figures Tindall uses in this passage are significant, revealing by 
themselves the connection between person and place she attempts to convey. 
This relationship is not only "intimate" (of great closeness), but "organic"—na­
tural to the point that we feel linked to place at the level of our own "flesh and 
bone." This analysis helps explain the special focus many authors place upon 
setting, and characters often have the same place-based sensibilities within the 
worlds of their stories. 
5 
We may find such sensibilities in the characters of William Maxwell's "The 
Thistles in Sweden," in which the husband and wife develop a deep rapport with their 
apartment. In this story, Maxwell uses physical space to explore and heighten these 
characters' romantic tension. The narrator—the husband—spends the first quarter of 
the story in devotional detail of their home, and we gradually discover that this obses­
sive relationship with place has to do with deeper tensions surrounding the couple's 
lack of children. On the opposite side of the spectrum, in James Joyce's "The Dead," 
Gabriel Conroy finds no attachment to place—we continually find him turning to 
windows and the outside world for relief—and he becomes distant from his wife be­
cause of it. 
With these and other stories as my models, I have explored in my own writing 
the various effects of place on character. "The Perfect Housewife" includes moments 
redolent of Gabriel's antagonistic relationship to place and resulting escapism. Luke's 
confinement with Ellen and Maddy brings out their conflicts, and he sees hope tor 
relief only in removing himself—he longs to watch the sunset from Ellen's bedroom 
windows, and to be sitting beyond in the sunlight of the piazza. 
Nowhere in this collection does any character demonstrate quite the affinity to 
place as the couple in Maxwell's story, but there are instances where similarly inten­
sive details of place have a negative effect. In the opening to "Reaching," Joan is 
hyperaware of her setting, and every new detail of the kitchen estranges her further. 
Although the opening does not fully explain Joan's family, relationship, and personal 
problems, we understand the stress she is under because of the way the kitchen's 
chaos affects her. In the end, she, too, turns to the window to flee the demands of her 
appliances and cooking projects.3 
Setting may also be used to press on characters outside of direct spatial rela­
tionships. John Updike makes extensive use of internal spaces to explore romantic 
conflict, but in "Snowing in Greenwich Village," the author also resorts to setting in a 
more general sense to affect his characters. As the married protagonist Richard walks 
the temptress Rebecca home, Updike writes, "The snow, invisible except around 
street lights, exerted a fluttering romantic pressure on their faces" (78). This frank line 
draws perhaps immoderate attention to the author's craft, but is nonetheless an in­
structive moment of another way in which setting can influence character relation­
ships. 
I have tried to do something similar in "A Christmas Toy." In the beginning, as 
Camille's faulty directions force Mark to struggle along the snowy roads of Sunriver, 
the weather adds additional pressure to their relationship issues; yet by the end it has 
become a uniting factor. Mark wishes for the snow to keep building and trap them 
inside, so they can remain together. 
Through Updike's consciousness of setting, he develops this craft element com­
prehensively enough to make it an active part of his characters' lives. When Richard 
agrees to go up to Rebecca's apartment, for instance, his thought that "it seemed im-
3 This method of escaping via windows does recur in my work, and is something that many other writ­
ers have used—but it is more than a crutch or cliche. It is evidence of the power of setting, and the 
importance of confining characters within a defined space. Place can exert great pressure on charac­
ters, and they will break free if the author allows. Thus the cars, buses, subways, restaurants, houses, 
and apartments—not open fields—that permeate fiction. 
7 
plausible to refuse" appears connected to the snowflakes' "fluttering romantic pres­
sure" on the previous page (78-79). But in "The Ice Palace," F. Scott Fitzgerald takes 
setting one step further. The author reflects the state of his characters in the story's 
setting by personifying it and broadening the craft element to encompass intangible 
qualities like mood and atmosphere. This story follows Sally Carrol through two ro­
mantic relationships, and not only does the protagonist "yawn" and "gaze ... sleepily," 
the city of Tarleton, Georgia, itself is in a dreary, idle state: houses are "intrenched 
behind great stodgy trees," streets are "opiate," and "even the shops [seem] only 
yawning their doors and blinking their windows in the sunshine before retiring into a 
state of utter and finite coma." These descriptions enhance the sense that neither Sally 
Carrol nor her relationships are moving anywhere, and in fact they don't, with the 
story ending in the exact same place and situation as it begins. 
Although my descriptions of setting do not tend to be so figurative, sometimes 
the literal imagery in my stories holds a symbolic layer of meaning. Returning to "A 
Christmas Toy," Mark arrives at the cul-de-sac of Camille's parents' house to find it 
"dim, deserted, and snowed under ... a Northwestern ghost town." Besides the line's 
literal meaning, it carries additional connotations of the dearth of romance that wor­
ries Mark through the first part of the story. Similarly, in "Reaching," the "scattered 
chunks of ice bobb[ing] in Upper Peoria Lake" could represent a coming thaw in the 
Tuckers' tensions—or else it could presage a premature rupturing of the family's 
foundation, since the ice is melting before its time. This ambiguity makes problematic 
the symbolic use of setting—the reader may not understand the author's intent unless 
8 
the author takes this method to the exaggerated extreme that Fitzgerald does in "The 
Ice Palace." But then again, perhaps it is proper that the reader derive from the text 
his own meaning; as William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley write in their essay 
"The Intentional Fallacy," "The design or intention of the author is neither available 
nor desirable as a standard forjudging the success of a work of literary art."4 From 
their perspective, what is most important is what is plainly present in the text, and we 
may take from that what we will. 
Approaching my theme through the lens of setting also seemed logical because 
it played to my strengths. One element that draws me to writing is the opportunity to 
draw a picture with words, and I have been able to do that with consistent success in 
my fiction. I begin with a clear image in my mind of what I wish to create, and then 
attempt to pinpoint the combination of words that will best enliven this image a 
process of finding le mots justes that is as challenging as it is crucial. Take the follow­
ing passage from "Reaching": 
She stopped the car on a deserted street she didn't recognize. It had 
the same tall poplars, but more tightly packed; their branches rose 
higher, reaching into the blue sky above. I he sidewalks undulated, 
bent and cracked by the poplars' stretching, thirsty roots. 
I started with the simple, but forceful, image of tall trees reaching to the sky. I didn't 
know until further research that I was thinking ot poplars, and only after reading 
about them did I discover the insatiable thirst of their roots, which then led to the im­
age of the broken sidewalk. The foregoing passage underscores the blending of artis-
4 Wimsatt, William K., and Monroe Beardsley. "The Intentional Fallacy." The Verbal Icon: Studies in 
the Meaning of Poetry. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1954. 3. 
9 
tic vision with precision I have labored to create in my stories. 
The simple fact that the stories in this collection are my own prompts me to la­
bel this thesis a success. I have done considerable outside reading during the writing 
process, and certain stylistic or structural influences are evident in my writing—the 
"epiphany" of James Joyce (compare his nearly sublime example at the conclusion ot 
"Araby" with mine of a subtler kind in "Shelter"), the lively imaginations ot Updike's 
characters' (see below)—I conceived these stories and brought them to fruition. 
I struggle to place my work within any established short story tradition or 
movement. 1 have some sense of what these are from the reading I have done, but 1 do 
not write with one in mind. Ideally, what I create should be a blend of something new. 
I am interested in realism, though not anything so conceptual as "literary 
realism."5 I wish only to portray less-than-fantastic people doing less-than-fantastic 
things. Faced with the choice, I would take up arms with the Modernists. My con­
cerns—and those of my stories—align with at least a quarter of what sociologist 
Georg Simmel associates with Modernist literature: "the claim ot the individual to 
preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming 
social forces, of historical heritage, ot external culture, and ot the technique ot lite. 
5 Notable for its "emphasis on detachment, objectivity, and accurate observation, its lucid but re-
strained criticism of social environment and mores, and the humane understanding that underlay its 
moral judgments." 
"Realism." Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. 19 May 2009 
<http://0-www.search.eb.com.ianus.uoregon.edu/eb/article-6097>. 
6 From "The Metropolis and Mental Life" (1903). 
10 
I should say that Joan in "Reaching" and Ed in "Another Time Capsule" strive for 
autonomy and individuality in the face of external pressures. I am sympathetic to the 
Modernists also because their ranks included Updike, whose "Rabbit" novels—be­
ginning with Rabbit, Run in 1960—especially dealt with broad societal issues. I ap­
preciate his hyperbole, odd metaphors, and inspiring imagination. His story-within-a-
story in "Toward Evening" about a Spry shortening sign is something that I would be 
proud to one day match in one of my stories. I have begun to experiment with imagi­
native point of view characters along the lines of Rafe in "Toward Evening" (these 
characters being identifiable by their tendency to fantasize, or the reliance on the 
conditional tense in their narrative). This effort may be seen at times throughout 
"Progression," and at the end of "Reaching" and "A Christmas Toy" (e.g.,"... they 
would remain in bed, impervious to all, and feel each other, and make love. They 
would celebrate Christmas in bed ..."). I feel that such passages—if executed proper­
ly—help draw the story in a fresh direction and pull the reader into the character's 
mind. 
Apart from having to pick sides, I encountered various obstacles as I wrote 
these stories due to the unique challenges that each one posed. While hoping not to 
become entangled in the details of the process of each story, I would like to address 
some of the primary difficulties I encountered during their development, and that of 
the collection as a whole. I have not been able to overcome every one of these trials, 
but simply trying to do so has taught me about myself as a writer and greatly im­
proved my skills. 
1 1  
"Another Time Capsule" was the first story I wrote—speaking both of this col­
lection and in general—and I completed it in a huff one afternoon two summers ago. 
In the writing I have done since, I usually begin a story with a character and/or place 
in mind and plod forward, but in this case the story came to me wholly, and I finished 
my first longhand draft in a few hours. Through all of my rewrites, the original form 
has stuck; I have restructured this story the least. I have received positive feedback 
about it—the story won second place in the Kidd Memorial Writing Competi­
tion—yet, problems persist. Why, people have asked me, is Ann so unsympathetic, 
even scorned? Why are she and Ed together? What was their past like? And why will 
Ed not leave his chair? These issues, I admit, were not accounted for by my initial 
vision. The first three questions I have tried to address through editing—honing my 
language, adding thoughts, scenes, or exposition that might illuminate these char­
acters—and I believe I have had reasonable success. Still, 1 would not be surprised to 
field questions about Ann at my defense. 
The final question proved trickier. My vision for the story centered around Ed, 
and Ed lived a sedentary life. My advisor suggested that I rewrite the story from 
Ann's point of view, and I wrote two pages that went fairly well. But I wasn't invested 
in her character (perhaps her unsympathetic nature is partially due to this—I could 
never come to fully understand Ann, so she remained two-dimensional on the page). 
Another option was to introduce other characters into the story to enliven things, but I 
feared that they would crowd out Ed. 
So I turned to John Barth, who has written a craft essay called "Incremental 
Perturbation: How to Know Whether You've Got Plot or Not."71 was bolstered by his 
early concession that "most working writers of fiction ... operate less by articulated 
narrative theory than by the hunch and feel of experience," and his assertion that "a 
'whole' action includes everything necessary to constitute a meaningful story and ex­
cludes anything irrelevant thereto." I thought "Another Time Capsule" passed these 
tests. He emphasizes the importance, however, of taking a story's "unstable homeo-
static system" (in my story, grumpy, ailing, romantically-disinclined Ed) and "incre­
mentally perturbing" it—essentially, prodding it with increasingly heightened con­
flicts—in order to reach a satisfying climax. That meant 1 had to get Ed up from his 
chair and move him around, however much he resisted. When I did, I could feel the 
story gaining momentum. 
I found myself in a similar struggle with a static narrative in "Progression." 
Toru is nearly as sedentary as Ed, and far more self-destructive, and yet I had chosen 
once more to make such a person my point-of-view character. Not only that, but I 
chose this story to experiment with Freytag's Triangle (seen below), beginning it after 
most of the rising action has occurred.8 
7 Barth, John. "Incremental Perturbation: How to Know Whether You've Got Plot or Not." Creating 
Fiction: Instruction and Insights From the Teachers of Associated Writing Programs. Ed. Julie 
Checkoway. Cincinnati: Story Press Books, 1999. 
8 Lovelace, Sean. Writer's Bloc. 2009. 20 May 2009 
<http://www.writers-bloc.net/2009/03/18/writing-about-writing>. 
13 
Climax 
The story began in my mind as a vivid image of Toru depressed in the solitude 
of a shabby apartment that only exacerbated his suffering—and I wanted the reader to 
begin with the same image, and wonder what lay behind Toru's plight. The rest ot the 
story, which would move into the past and then return to the present and push for­
ward, would then provide the why. Likely because of the nature of Toru, however, not 
much happened in the past or present of the story (in its initial drafts) to justify this 
alternative form, or to overcome the sluggishness of Toru's point of view. I really 
wanted to keep the story's form—once more, in an attempt to stay true to my initial 
vision—so for the story to work I had to do something else. Barth's ideas on plot 
helped (especially with regard to Toru and Momoko's interactions), but the most sig­
nificant and helpful change was to develop John—present in the initial version, but to 
no great effect—into a fuller character who could triangulate with Toru and Momoko 
and prod their relationship issues. As the story stands now, I believe I was successful 
in using him to push on Toru and propel the narrative forward. (And as the title sug­
gests, I have decided to delve fully into the story's atypical chronology, rather than 
revert to a traditional form.) 
14 
I have emphasized above my desire to remain faithful to my initial creative vi­
sions, and I place great importance upon this. In order to believe in myself as a writer, 
I need to be able to trust my creative impulses as they come, and not bow to internal 
or external pressure to jettison or transform them at the first sight of trouble. In cer­
tain instances, however, I have adapted the structure of my stories when faced with 
constructive outside criticism. I have realized that the best way to remain loyal to my 
artistic vision is to find the most effective means to articulate it, and sometimes this 
demands that I alter my narrative. This has been the case with "Shelter," which I ini­
tially set after the main perturbations of the story had already occurred, and with 
"Reaching," where I tried to switch points of view at the end to reveal something new 
about Jeff. In the case of the former, I changed it when I recognized that I was rob­
bing my story of its greatest tensions, and with the latter, I learned that I had erred in 
trying to take Joan's story away from her at the last moment. But it took a handful of 
revisions before I was willing to admit the need to remove Jeffs point of view. 
Additional difficulties arose as I tried to bring these six disparate stories to­
gether in a cohesive collection. Due to the direction of my thesis, I have tried with 
each to maintain a focus on setting and threatened romance, but to do so in a way that 
is natural to the characters and story. The last thing I wanted was to impose relation­
ship issues or menacing settings simply to make a story fit with the rest. I think I have 
succeeded in avoiding these pitfalls. 
I faced still more challenges as I became aware of these stories' intertextuality. I 
have not been so ambitious as to attempt a dramatic arc across all six of my stories, 
15 
but I have tried to remain conscious of how they read alongside each other. This has 
meant ordering them in a way makes sense in terms of juxtaposing place, pacing, and 
characters, and maintaining an awareness of repetition throughout the collection. 
Repetition can be positive, as far as motifs go, but it can also give rise to stale writ­
ing. For example, if Maddy's eyes "[flutter] open and closed" in "The Perfect House­
wife," Momoko's cannot do the same in "Progression"; they must instead "[struggle] 
to stay open." Not everyone would notice if I used the same sentence twenty pages 
apart, but an alert reader would, and the repetition might pull him or her out of the 
story and draw attention to my authorial role. I had to become creative with gestures, 
too, because not every character could "[lean] his head back into the web of his 
clasped hands"—as Mark does in "A Christmas Toy"—no matter how much I like the 
gesture. 
More could be said about each of my stories, about this collection, and about 
this thesis—but I am now as anxious as you to get to the true heart of this project. Af­
ter all, I chose a creative thesis in part to avoid an extended essay. I will therefore step 
aside, and you may flip past the bibliography and begin reading. Joan is waiting for 
you in her kitchen. 
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Carver, Raymond. Short Cuts. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 
Carver, Raymond. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. New York: Vin­
tage Books, 1989. 
Many of Carver's stories deal with relationships in danger, and he uses setting 
to keep his stories feeling fresh and to maintain tension. At times he uses this craft 
CIClliCll4lr   IVJ 1U1CC 1uI1:S„  Lliaiavivi^ tug^uiwt, cOtiviA->aA  cocfv.  lnv^i tuinmivoi ut  1mUr*^r<1=V> flvrtlrv^ii^KVK/  niters n \ j  ° 
character's actions. An example of the former is "Gazebo," a story about a husband 
and wife managing a motel together. Except during flashback, the characters remain 
within a suite for the duration of the story, and this confined setting forces their con­
flicts to the surface. The narrator, the husband, calls it "a place to move around in," 
but this setting is so effective precisely because they can't move around in it very 
much. I have tried to do something similar in "The Perfect Housewife" when Luke 
must sit between Ellen and Maddy at the dinner table. In an example of the latter, in 
"They're Not Your Husband," Doreen becomes more assertive with her husband at 
work, which is her territory, and Earl becomes more shallow as he mimics the busi­
nessmen he sees at Doreen's diner. 
Chabon, Michael. A Model World And Other Stories. New York: William Morrow 
and Company, Inc., 1991. 
Part II of this collection, Lost W, was especially uTsehfeu l for my back­
ground reading. This section tracks from various perspectives, and at various points 
in time, the relationship of Dr. and Mrs. Shapiro as it dissolves. We learn of this de­
generation in the first sentence of the section—"One Saturday in that last, intermina­
ble summer before his parents separated..." (131)—so the intrigue of Chabon's work 
comes through his unfolding of something he has already told us (akin to what I have 
attempted with "Progression"). 
Much of what is useful to my project is precisely where and how the Shapiros 
separate. In "The Little Knife," they abort a summer vacation while eating out, and 
then in "More Than Human," we see Dr. Shapiro realizing that "he burdened his son 
with bad news or disapprobation in restaurants, for reasons that were unclear to him" 
(146). That this couple tends to deal with their family affairs in a public setting is tell­
ing of their discomfort with their home life. 
"Blumenthal on the Air," from Part I: A Model World, was also useful, as it in­
volves an American living in Paris with an Iranian wife who is ignorant of the lan­
guage. As Blumenthal states, "Here we are, in the capital of France, waiting for her 
heart, or mine, to undertake a change" (76). I have used a similar kind of setting pres­
sure in "The Perfect Housewife," where Luke cannot speak the language and feels 
somewhat out of sorts in Italy. 
Chandler, Marilyn R. Dwelling in the Text: Houses in American Fiction. Berkeley: 
University of California Press, 1991. 
This book is most relevant alongside the Gilman story listed below, "The Yel­
low Wallpaper." Chandler writes near the beginning that "American writers have gen-
18 
erally portrayed the structures an individual inhabits as bearing a direct relationship 
or resemblance to the structure of his or her psyche and inner life and as constituting 
a concrete manifestation of specific values" (10); one may see this principle put into 
practice in Gilman's story. Later, in a chapter that Chandler has devoted to Gilman's 
story, she elaborates upon exactly how the house in "The Yellow Wallpaper" presses 
upon, and reflects the psychology of, the female protagonist and narrator. Chandler 
discusses the narrator's plight (her husband has confined her to a former nursery 
room, fearing for her mental health) as a form of dual oppression that operates on the 
levels of place and symbolism: her "enclosure" constitutes "not only physical 'impris­
onment' in a house but in a system that entraps women in confining roles that weaken 
and diminish their natural powers" (139). 
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. "The Lady With the Pet Dog." The Portable Chekhov. Ed. 
Avrahm Yarmolinsky. New York: Viking Penguin, 1947. 
During a scene near the end of this story, Chekhov uses physical space to press 
on his romantically involved characters. Gurov and Anna must struggle through their 
relationship issues on a "narrow, gloomy staircase" (428). This limited space hems 
them in, and their physical proximity leads in part to the emotional proximity that 
Gurov seems to feel toward Anna: He "[draws] Anna ... to him and [begins] kissing 
her face and her hands." Anna cannot effectively resist due to their confined space, 
and can only say, "What are you doing, what are you doing!" (429). 
A similar moment may be found in my story "Progression," as Toru approaches 
19 
Momoko in the armchair. He intends to make love to her, and though "her hand 
pushjes] against his," she has little leverage in this situation given that she is trapped 
under him. This is not a rape scene, but Momoko may not have assented to sex had 
they been on equal footing. 
Dubus, Andre. Selected Stories of Andre Dubus. Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher, 
Inc., 1988. 
Dubus uses setting effectively in "Miranda of the Valley" to exacerbate roman­
tic conflict. The protagonist becomes pregnant at home in California just before leav­
ing for school in Boston, and as she calls her boyfriend to inform him, she feels an 
intense longing for him that has much to do with their remoteness from one another: 
"She closed her eyes and squeezed the phone, as though her touch could travel too, as 
her voice did, and she saw the vast night between their two coasts, saw the telephone 
lines crossing the dark mountains and plains and mountains between them" (5). 
Yet, in "Waiting," the idea of place equates with that of escape. The protago­
nist's husband has died before the time of this story, but troubled romance persists for 
her, spreading through her life in the forms of loneliness and insecurity. In order to 
compose and collect herself, she often resorts to the beach. Sometimes she goes there 
physically, but at the end she flees from a man she has slept with (to whom the text 
refers only as "he") by slipping away in her mind: "Near-dreaming, she saw herself 
standing naked in the dark waves. One struck her breast and she wheeled slow and 
graceful, ... hair touching sand as she turned then rose and floated in swift tenderness 
20 
out to sea" (46). It is a moment akin to Gabriel's attempt to find comfort through win­
dows and the outside world in "The Dead," although here the woman looks internally 
for her escape. In my own work, Mark fantasizes similarly in "A Christmas Toy" to 
flee the present: "The week after Mark's promotion, he and Camille had gone home 
shopping, and found the perfect beach house in Yachats. There, he and Camille—the 
four-star-restaurant manager and the crafter of toys—would settle and marry and 
couple and not leave until the ocean rose and carried them away." 
Dybek, Stuart. "Pet Milk." The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: 
Fifty North American Stories Since 1970. Ed. Lex Williford and Michael Mar-
tone. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1999. 
Dybek, Stuart. "We Didn't." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Richard 
Bausch and R.V. Cassill. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 471-479. 
In "We Didn't," a story about a couple's disintegrating relationship, setting is the 
proximate cause of their breakup. The encroachment of a stranger's death on the cou­
ple's first attempt at sex becomes, for Julie, insurmountable, and although there has 
been tension before, this event brings their conflicts to the fore. The device and result 
are similar to Carver's "So Much Water So Close to Home," in which a man and his 
friends find a dead body while on a fishing trip. 
In "Pet Milk," Dybek uses time as well as place to push on the couple at the 
center of the story. While they are out to dinner, they discuss their future "escape 
routes" hers taking her to Europe, and the narrator's taking him wherever it please 
the Peace Corps—and this creates for the narrator the interesting phenomenon of 
2 1  
"missing someone [he] was still with" (257). A glass-covered painting called "The 
Street Musicians of Prague" also happens to hang above their table, and he notices 
her reflection; as he then thinks, "seeing her reflection hovering ghost-like upon an 
imaginary Prague was like seeing a future from which she had vanished" (258). Then, 
at the end, Dybek's narrator is enclosed in the train conductor's empty compartment 
with Kate, and he imagines himself on the train platform watching them kiss—an­
other instance of the detachment he feels even while he is with her. These are com­
plex uses of place and time that I have not yet begun to incorporate into my own 
work, but that, like Updike's Spry sign, I one day hope to. 
Earley, Tony. "Here We Are in Paradise." Here We Are in Paradise: Stories. Boston: 
Little, Brown, 1994. 56-81. 
Earley immediately establishes a conflicting interplay between place and the 
romantic relationship of this story's protagonists. Vernon "[does] not let Peggy sit out­
side during the day" because doctors have diagnosed her as sun-sensitive, and he 
brings home a flock of ducks so "the two of them could sit together on the porch in 
the evenings, when the sun was lower and not so dangerous, and watch the ducks 
swim" (56). He believes that doing so will mitigate the side effects of her confine­
ment, but of course it doesn't; so, before the first paragraph is out, we have a setting-
induced, Barth-quality "unstable homeostatic system." I have striven for such an 
arresting-yet-expository introduction in each of my stories, and I think I have had the 
most success with "Reaching." 
22 
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Babylon Revisited And Other Stories. New York: Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons, 1960. 
As mentioned above, "The Ice Palace" is a good example of how setting can 
become an active force in a story. Apart from the descriptions of Tarleton, Georgia, 
Sally Carrol later becomes trapped in the ice palace, and her struggles in this dark 
labyrinth lead her to question her decision to move north and marry. There is no ana­
log in my stories for this exact situation; however, the basic idea of a setting confin­
ing a character and forcing him or her to look inward does show up in my work. 
When Ed's aches and pains keep him sedentary in his chair in "Another Time Cap­
sule," he undergoes a similar process of internal questioning that leads him to ques­
tion his subservience to Ann. 
Ford, Richard. "Rock Springs." Rock Springs. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 
1987. 
In this story, setting helps expose the faults in the relationship of the protago­
nists. The two seem destined for success when they begin a cross-country trip to Flor­
ida, but Edna departs midway through due to the events of their travels, leaving the 
narrator alone with his daughter. "I'm tired of this," says Edna when their car breaks 
down. "I wish I'd stayed in Montana" (11). The implication is that if they had stayed 
in Montana, their relationship might have been troubled, but they could have perse­
vered together. The pressures of the road trip encourage their separation. 
I attempt something similar in "The Perfect Housewife." The story does not in-
23 
elude much about Luke and Ellen's relationship back home in Vermont, but uprooting 
them and dropping them in Italy presses on their relationship by making them un­
dergo experiences and challenges that they wouldn't have had at home. 
Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. New York: Al­
fred A. Knopf, 1983. 
While not directly relevant to my project, this craft book offered many insights 
that I felt I must take into consideration as one of the "young writers" to which the 
title refers. One passage does have particular bearing on my thesis, however. In the 
chapter "Common Errors," Gardner emphasizes the importance of creating tangible 
settings in fiction. He refers to his notion of the "vivid and continuous fictional 
dream" in saying that the duty of the writer is to 
[set] up a dramatized action in which we are given the signals that 
make us 'see' the setting, characters, and events; that is, he does not 
tell us about them in abstract terms, ... but gives us images that 
appeal to our senses ... so that we seem to move among the char­
acters, lean with them against the fictional walls, taste the fictional 
gazpacho, smell the fictional hyacinths. (97) 
This is general, but excellent, advice, and something I have kept in mind during the 
writing process. In application, it means that Toru in "Progression" looks at an "Ore­
gon ash" instead of mere trees, and that he does not simply see tea-smoked duck on 
the menu at the Szechuan House, but "imagine[s] for a moment its fennel and pepper­
corns on his tongue." 
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Anthology of Short 
24 
Fiction. Ed. Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill. New York: W.W. Norton & Com­
pany, 2006. 597-608. 
As alluded to previously, this first-person story tracks the imbalanced marriage 
and psychological decline of its female narrator; it further relates to my project in that 
the woman's husband has confined her to a nursery room whose yellow wallpaper 
gives the story its name. On the basic level of aesthetics, the room's dinginess puts the 
narrator ill at ease, as she laments its wallpaper that is "a smouldering unclean yellow, 
strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight." Other features of the room (e.g., "the 
windows [were] barred for little children") only increase the pressure it places on the 
mentally-unstable narrator (598-99). Taken together, Gilman takes setting-related ten­
sions farther—and connects them more deeply with her protagonist—than the other 
authors I have examined. This model did not seem particularly applicable to my col­
lection, due to the necessity of some kind of mental instability on the part of a charac­
ter, but further opened my eyes to what a capable author can do with setting. 
Hemingway, Ernest. Men Without Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1997. 
Hemingway's treatment of setting in these stories is not elaborately linked to 
characters' personalities or relationships, but a close reading reveals the significant 
this craft element plays even in such a dialogue-heavy story as "Hills Like White Ele­
phants." Hemingway's descriptions of place are minimal, but each adds something to 
the already-high tension that the couple experiences as they debate getting an abor­
tion. In the beginning, we read that "there [is] no shade and no trees, and it [is] very 
25 
hot and the express from Barcelona [will] come in forty minutes" (50). We can infer 
from these sparse details the physical discomfort of the couple and the isolation they 
may be feeling, and the girl's gestures then confirm her unrest: she looks away to the 
hills in the distance three times, and once more to the fields and mountains in the 
other direction. Because Hemingway does not explicate the characters' emotional 
states, these details and pressures of place build to and help explain the moment near 
the end when the girl says, "I'll scream." My prose style does not tend toward such 
austere writing, but I have discussed with my primary advisor my penchant to "tell" 
too much, and Hemingway provides a good example of all that a writer can convey 
by carefully "showing." 
In "A Canary For One," the narrator and his wife have already decided to sepa­
rate by the time the story begins, but Hemingway reveals this only at the end; thus, 
this story also helped demonstrate how extensively setting can be used to show things 
and subtly build tension. The static nature of place in this story is especially interest­
ing. In contrast to "Hills," the action takes place on a moving train, but the narrative 
eye never seems to move. This is what makes so shocking the discovery after three 
pages that this is a first-person narration, and it hints at the stagnation that might have 
led to this troubled relationship in the first place. This sort ot withholding while 
maintaining tension and offering enough to keep the reader engaged—is another ad­
vanced technique, and something I might try in a future story. 
Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: The Viking Press, 1961. 
I have already mentioned "The Dead," but "Araby" is another story in which 
Joyce employs setting to convey romantic tension. Here, the setting frames an im­
practicable relationship. The narrator often admires Mangan's sister as she appears 
angelically under her porch light, and his lyric descriptions of her enhance the sense 
that she is in the vein of Laura, the unattainable Petrarchan beloved. To wit: "The 
light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her 
hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing" (32). A similar 
moment occurs in my story "The Perfect Housewife," where part ot what restrains 
Luke is his perception of Maddy as an inaccessible work of art: "He lay beside 
Maddy, wanting and not wanting to move her hands. Wanting her to remain Venus. 
He moved the hand from her breast, but left the other." 
Lopez, Barry. "Landscape and Narrative." Contemporary Creative Nonfiction. Ed. 
Bich Minh and Porter Shreve. Longman, 2004. 271-275. 
I have mentioned above how I value precision in the settings ot my stories, and 
this is something of great import to nonfiction writer Barry Lopez. He desires that "no 
hypocrisy or subterfuge [be] involved" in the writing process, lest the author betray 
the reader's trust in the greater truth of the narrative (274). This truth, for Lopez, is 
"something alive and unpronounceable"—something ethereal—but he holds definite 
views with regard to its opposite: "To make up something that is not there, ... to 
knowingly set forth a false relationship, is to be lying, no longer telling a story" 
(Ibid.). Perhaps because I favor fiction, I believe that artistic license allows one to 
27 
take certain liberties while writing, but I agree with Lopez in principle; a reader ought 
to be able to believe that what I write could be true, whether or not it actually is. 
Moore, Alan (w), Gibbons, Dave (p), and Higgins, John (i). Watchmen. NY: DC 
Comics, 2005. 
This graphic novel tells, in part, the story of the troubled relationship of Dr. 
Manhattan and Laurie. She is a masked adventurer, but Dr. Manhattan is a superhero 
proper and must live within a government base, an enclosure that places stress on 
their relationship. I have included this work in an attempt to broaden the scope of my 
project and see how my focus might develop in other genres. 
I am also interested in ways to expand and deepen the fictional worlds of my 
stories, and one of the ways I have found to be effective is to bring in pop culture. In 
"Reaching," for instance, I have given considerable space to a particular Batgirl is­
sue—not simply to include a pop culture reference, but because it helps characterize 
Gail and resonates thematically with the rest of the story. If one of my readers hap­
pens to have read the issue in question, then it is simply a bonus, granting an addi­
tional layer of realism to the story. 
Salinger, J.D. "Franny." Franny and Zooey. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 
2001. 
The relationship difficulties of Franny and Lane manifest themselves most 
strongly during a meal at the restaurant Sickler's. Salinger's choice to place them in a 
restaurant is important for the obvious reason that it makes them sit across from one 
28 
another and converse, allowing them the opportunity to air their concerns or griev­
ances; but the author also makes careful use of everything else the setting of the res­
taurant has to offer. The waiter comes in and out, pushing the story along and occa­
sionally flaring the couple's conflicts, and the narrator also follows Franny into the 
restroom. "[Unattended and apparently unoccupied," it is the perfect place (in terms 
of the story's dramatic arc) for her collapse: 
She held [a] tense, almost fetal position for a suspensory 
moment—then broke down. She cried for fully five minutes. 
She cried without trying to suppress any of the noisier mani­
festations of grief and confusion, with all the convulsive 
throat sounds that a hysterical child makes when the breath is 
trying to get up through a partly closed epiglottis. (22) 
I read this story while editing "Progression," and I looked to this restaurant scene 
(minus Franny's trip to the bathroom) for inspiration as I revised the scene where 
Toru and Momoko go to the Szechuan House. 
Tindall, Gillian. Countries of the Mind: The Meaning of Place to Writers. Boston: 
Northeastern University Press, 1991. 
This source focuses upon the importance of place for novelists, but much of 
what Tindall says may also apply to my short stories. She writes that tor many fiction 
authors, "The location of one of their own stories is something more, and other, than 
'a setting,'" and this is very much in accordance with my desire to make place an ac­
tive force in my stories (1). 
Updike, John. Same Door: Short Stories. New York: Random House, 1981. 
29 
I have written briefly about these stories in my introduction, but "Toward Eve­
ning" deserves further analysis for its interplay of setting and romantic conflict. The 
first half of the story includes a marvelous section where Updike ushers his protago­
nist toward a girl in the enclosed space of "the rear of the bus," enabling Rafe to es­
sentially devour her; more than a full page is devoted to an avalanche of fantastic and 
specific details about her (62-3). We do not fully understand the significance of Rafe's 
intently wandering eyes until he arrives home, when he conveys a lack of interest in 
his wife (introduced as "[the baby's] mother" [66]), and ends the story in mental rev­
erie (the Spry sign mentioned above). 
Walk the Line. Dir. James Mangold. Perf. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. 
Twentieth Century Fox, 2005. 
This source is useful as it tracks the breakdown of Johnny Cash's first marriage, 
which has fissures from the start, but which his constant touring with June Carter ag­
gravates. One notable shot that reveals the pressures of setting shows Cash and Carter 
singing a duet on stage as Cash's wife looks on from the audience. 
Not to belabor the kitchen scene of "The Perfect Housewife," but I have striven 
for a similar "shot" near the end as all three characters sit around the table and Ellen 
watches Luke watching Maddy. 
30 
Stories 
31 
Reaching 
Joan Tucker stood beside the granite-topped island of her kitchen and breathed 
in the thick cinnamon air. After three days of laundry, sweeping, dusting, and watch­
ing DVDs, this was the only place Joan could think of to pass the fourth straight day 
without her daughter Gail. 
Her husband Jeff had bought three new sets of cookware when they had moved 
in last fall, and much of this was strewn about. Applesauce simmered on the stovetop, 
and pots dirtied by jam filled the sink. In the oven, a broccoli cheese quiche baked on 
the newly-discovered intensive hot air setting, and Joan did her best to keep an eye on 
it. She could never tell with quiches. Just as the twenty minutes expired on her apple­
sauce, the oven timer sounded, and then another beep came from the corner—Joan 
had forgotten about her loaf of rye. It now puffed to fill the glass dome of the bread 
machine, a two-year-old and previously unused wedding present. Joan placed her 
wooden spoon on its crock, extinguished the stove's burner, reached back to silence 
the bread machine, and opened the oven to save the quiche. She almost grabbed it 
with her bare hands, then remembered to slip on a mitt. As everything lay steaming 
on the counter, Joan leaned against the sink. A few seconds passed before she realized 
a whimper had come from her mouth, and she suddenly and desperately wanted to 
cry. She resisted only by turning to the wide window above the kitchen sink. 
Through the few swirling snowflakes, scattered chunks of ice bobbed in Upper 
Peoria Lake a quarter-mile below the house. Often the lake would be frozen in Febru­
ary, but this Illinois winter had become mild. Last night's two-inch snowfall had been 
the first in weeks, and every school and road remained open. Joan had felt a nearly 
physical pain when the morning news revealed no closures. Last year, when she had 
still been teaching at Peoria Heights High, snow had stranded the Tuckers in the hills 
a half-dozen times, disrupting Joan's literature class and leaving Gail to sled idly for 
days. Jeff had somehow managed to time his east coast sales trips to miss most of 
these snow-ins. Now, when Joan had counted on these flurries to close St. Thomas 
Elementary and let her keep Gail home, the kitchen thermometer read a benign noon 
temperature of thirty-six degrees. Joan ground her teeth. 
When it was thirty-six degrees, the school bus climbed their hill with ease, and 
Joan couldn't stop Gail from climbing aboard. Joan had made sure to ask her twice 
every morning if she felt too sick to go, but she had said no each time. Gail seemed to 
want to go, as thin and as pale as she was. Jeff and Dr. Benson wanted her to go, too. 
Ever since Gail had finished her second round of chemotherapy a month before, they 
had lobbied for Joan to let her daughter return to the fourth grade. Gail's blood counts 
had bounced back, they said, so Gail should, too. So, although Joan could still close 
her thumb and ring finger around Gail's biceps, although Gail still stumbled climbing 
the stairs, to school she went. Jeff drove and flew around to sell his enterprise servers, 
and Joan stood amid the remnants of the day's cooking projects, willing the mercury 
to drop. 
33 
At 2:00, the thrush on the kitchen's wall clock sang. Joan's stomach tight­
ened—the bus driver had arrived within five minutes of the hour every day this week. 
She put away the final cleaned pot and strode to the entryway. She cursed the clouded 
glass—thousand-dollar panes, and all she could see were fat gray blurs. 
Outside, the blue school bus sat at the curb. Children smiled along its length, 
craning forward or backward. The driver's seat was empty. Joan panicked until he 
rose at the rear of the bus, and Gail appeared next to him in her orange winter coat. 
But her relief turned to dismay as she watched her daughter descend, supported by the 
driver. This morning she had been smiling, and had eaten breakfast without throwing 
up. but now she looked pallid. While Joan had been cooking treats, Gail had been 
struggling through the jostling halls of St. Thomas and standing at the sidelines 
through two recesses. The playground aide would have comforted Gail, but not like 
Joan could have if she had been there, or if Gail had stayed home. Joan blinked away 
tears. The doctor had promised that Gail was ready. 
"Gail!" She ran down the front steps and wrapped her arms around her daugh­
ter. "I'm so sorry." She ran a hand through Gail's bristly hair. It was growing back 
faster, and seemed straighter and a darker brown than before. Gail's face, too, was un­
dergoing a change. During chemo, it had been puffy from all of the steroids, but now 
her cheeks had become more slender, and her blue eyes seemed to protrude as the 
skin around them shrank back. Joan feared its new lean look. 
"I'm fine, Mom." Gail's voice seemed to come from the end of a slack tin can 
phone. Yet her face showed resiliency. Her eyes stared into Joan's, and her jaw 
34 
clenched. Every face inside the bus looked on as she pulled from Joan's embrace. 
Joan stood and caught the stare of the bus driver. He was a young man in khakis 
and an argyle sweater who might have been handsome if he smiled, but whose mouth 
was drawn down in alignment with his mustache. He spat over his shoulder on the 
front lawn. Finally he said, "I don't know what you're thinking, ma'am." 
"The doctor told us..." 
The driver had turned back to his bus. Joan had given ground to her husband 
and the doctor, and now this man saw her as a bad mother. These men buffeted her, 
making decisions and casting judgment, and Joan questioned her strength against 
them. Worst of all, she had left her mother behind in Seattle when she came to the 
Midwest with Gail to marry Jeff. She took a deep breath and guided her daughter in­
side. 
Surely it was just a bad day. Dr. Benson, in the supreme calm of his bedside 
manner, had said that this would happen as Gail's condition improved. But Joan 
struggled to believe that the cancer had really left. Whatever the blood counts had 
said, she knew how her daughter acted when healthy. She sledded, or, when the 
weather cleared, rollerbladed with the neighbors. But now, as had been her routine 
during the past months, she settled onto the living room couch just off the kitchen. 
She lay on her side with her legs folded back in a vee, her aluminum throw-up bowl 
close at hand. A ring was bracketed to its side, and whenever it rang, Joan knew to 
come. 
Gail would remain in this spot until dinner, then return briefly afterward before 
35 
going up to bed. This lethargy had first appeared last August. But Gail had shown no 
other symptoms, and Joan had ignored it. A week later, Jeffs mother came and took 
Gail to the doctor while Joan was out of town; the resulting diagnosis shook them all. 
Joan had watched this cancer grow in her child, and had done nothing. Now, when 
her mother's instinct had flared, how could she neglect it? These things could come 
back—it could have begun three weeks ago after the last blood draw—and it it did, 
Joan would have allowed its return. 
Gail began to read Batgirl as Joan entered the kitchen. But dinner was still tour 
hours away. She returned and sat in the chair along the wall adjacent to Gail's couch, 
tapping her fingers atop its cool leather arms. 
"How was school?" The hood of Gail's sweatshirt was down, and Joan could 
just see through her fledgling hair to the scalp. 
Gail's eyes remained on the page. "Fine." 
Joan was at a loss for what to say next. Maybe she should have begun by men­
tioning the applesauce she had made earlier, which Gail loved, or the ice floating on 
the lake. "Did you see Garrett?" she asked after a moment. Garrett Dawson had been 
Gail's best friend at school the previous year. Joan had come to understand their 
friendship not by anything concrete—Gail had never flat-out told her about it, and 
Garrett lived across town and hadn't often come over—but by the points of reference 
in Gail's stories. At recess, Gail would play kickball "on Garrett's team," or "against 
Garrett." 
"Yeah, during lunch," Gail said, "but he was with Jake and Govy." She looked 
36 
up and made a face, flaring her nostrils. "He's a punk now." 
Joan leaned forward and placed her chin in her palm, then thought that made 
her look overeager and sat back. "How come?" 
"Not him, I guess, but his friends. They rub my head and call me—'Whiskers,' 
and he doesn't say anything." Her eyes were downcast. 
Joan was relieved she had leaned back out of her daughter's sight. She had 
promised Jeff that she would be strong and avoid crying in front of Gail, and she 
hated to break her word—each time, it felt like failing herself, and her daughter, 
anew. But injustices kept coming, and with each came new pain. Jeff helped, of 
course, when he was around. He made sure Gail's material needs were fulfilled, and 
placed all of the phone calls to the insurance companies—Joan had once looked at his 
cell phone statement, and was astonished to see it stretch for eleven pages. But right 
at this moment, as she slowed her breathing to compose herself for Gail, he was of 
little help. 
Jeffs mother, who lived in Madison, Wisconsin, was closer to them than Joan's, 
but he used her mostly as a threat—he had said he would send for her if Joan 
"couldn't handle things." The summer before, Vi had come with her giant pink suit­
case when Jeff was having back problems, and she and her cigarettes had taken over 
the house. She prepared all of Jeffs meals, and even fluffed his pillows on the couch. 
Joan had been on vacation and could have done these things, but she took no offense; 
Jeff could be coddled by his mother if he wished. But Vi also took Gail shopping, 
which had always been Joan's special treat, and then, while Joan was on a day trip to 
37 
Chicago with a coworker, Vi made the trip with Gail to the doctor's office. Whatever 
the woman's intentions, because of her Joan had not been present for her daughter's 
diagnosis. Joan had been unable to hold her daughter's hand during the moment Gail 
had learned that she had leukemia. Joan could never forgive Vi for that. 
Yet, Joan did need some help. She needed an ally. Gail took so much of her 
physical and mental energy that she felt sapped after several hours with her. She had 
the pouch at the bottom of her purse. Her mother had given it to her when she had 
visited during the first weeks of Gail's illness, to be used should Joan ever need to 
"check out for a little while"; but she had never used it. 
The metal loop rang, and Joan rose and returned with a cloth and glass ot water 
by the time the first heaves started. This bout was a quick one. Joan wiped her daugh­
ter's mouth with the warm, damp cloth, and Gail didn't tuss. She lay back in the crev­
ice of the couch and pulled her wool blanket up to her neck. As she pushed the bot­
tom out with her feet, she resembled a plaid sarcophagus. Then she bent her knees, 
and the image faded. 
Gail picked up her comic book. "Mom, how fast does hair grow back?" Her 
voice trembled slightly over the last few words. 
Joan managed a small smile. Her hair did seem to be coming on stronger lately. 
"As quick as lightning, honey. Why?" She peered at Gail's comic book and saw an 
illustration of an old bald man. "Who's that?" 
Gail tilted the comic for Joan to see. "Doctor Death." 
Joan shuddered and looked away. The sarcophagus flashed to her mind, and she 
felt on the verge of tears: her daughter, spending the afternoon with Doctor Death. 
Gail usually read Archie or Alf. Joan snatched the comic. 
Gail's bottom lip quivered. "Mom!" When she sat up, several other comic books 
slid to the carpet. On the cover of one was a busty, silver-haired woman. 
Undoubtedly Jeff had been Gail's source. How had she failed to notice these 
comics before? She inhaled deeply, and held her breath; if she let it out, she couldn't 
be responsible for her words. Jeffs role was to work and support the family every 
way he could, and Joan's was to stay home and care for Gail. Now he undermined her 
even while he was absent. 
In the issue Joan held, Batman and Batgirl wore black batsuits and futuristic gas 
masks to fend off a swirling green poison. Doctor Death, his head disembodied and 
looming above, was covered in wrinkles and seemed to have no teeth; his mask re­
sembled a respirator. Gail had already seen a death more real come and go. Perhaps, 
if it came again, it would help her to envision it as a feeble old man. 
But Jeff shouldn't have brought death under this roof, whatever its form, not 
when Gail still spent her afternoons on the couch, and when Joan was still afraid to 
leave the house in case something happened and the school called. 
An acrid smell pressed upon her, and Joan realized that she was still holding the 
throw-up bowl. She tossed the Batgirl comic on the couch beside Gail, who glared at 
Joan with the exasperation only a mother could provoke, and took the bowl to the 
bathroom to clean it for the next time. 
39 
Jeff came in the door at seven, just as the hour hand reached the nightingale. 
His dress shoes clumped along the hardwood floor as he walked toward the kitchen 
where Joan was at the island slicing vegetables for a salad. Gail had gone to her room 
an hour before to rest. Joan turned to kiss him hello and asked about his day. 
Jeff sighed and stretched his arms up and out. "I sold the Limeys all they 
needed, and then some." 
Joan laughed. Jeff had called his customers Limeys ever since his sales trip to 
the UK a year and a half back, and she still found it funny. He hung his overcoat and 
hat on the tall back of a chair at the table, then methodically emptied each pocket of 
his slacks and blazer into the wicker basket on the counter. He had just turned forty, 
two years younger than Joan, but his custom suit and graying hair attested to the hard-
won successes he'd already achieved. Joan knew only that his trade had something to 
do with mainframe computers, but it had struck her as glamorous ever since she had 
first seen him on a sales call at her bank in Seattle. He had sat at the manager's desk 
and given his pitch in a black pinstriped suit and matching fur felt Homburg. Joan 
hadn't thought businessmen still wore hats. As he left, he had approached her in line, 
doffed his hat, and asked for her number. He was the most debonair man she had ever 
seen, and she wrote it out and dropped it in his hat. He was only in town for three 
days before returning to Illinois, but they met for dinner twice. They saw each other 
at wide intervals during the months to come, but Jeff called from every city he went 
to, and finally Joan decided she and her daughter ought to move to Peoria. Gail had 
lacked a father figure since her dad—never Joan's husband—had skipped out on them 
40 
when Gail was born. 
Joan pulled a tuna casserole from the oven. Her quiche from earlier had come 
out soggy, and Gail had requested the casserole. Every night this week Gail had gone 
upstairs before Jeff came home, even though Joan encouraged her to wait for him. 
Jeff was only home for two weeks before his next trip east to Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
and Boston. Joan wished Gail would stay on the couch. Jeff hardly saw her, and Joan 
felt more comfortable with her at the dinner table. One on one, Joan had little to say 
to Jeff. Nothing of note happened at home, especially with Gail gone. But she 
couldn't very well drag Gail down just for the sake of conversation. Instead, Joan 
would bring her a plate of food when she and Jeff sat down to eat, and in this way, the 
family would eat together. 
Jeff came up behind Joan and slipped a cold hand under her sweater to massage 
her back. Joan shivered. "Smells good," he said. 
He was lying. When she had taken Jeff to Pike Place Market on their first date, 
he had admitted that he disliked the smell of fish. "There's nothing like that in the 
Midwest," he had said. "I was twenty-eight when I first saw the ocean, and my first 
thought was I'd stepped into one grand portable toilet." 
But Jeff knew tuna fish was Gail's favorite meal. 
"How is she?" he asked. 
Joan turned. His light blue eyes glinted under the island's light, and he looked 
hale. He traveled to other cities with winter sunshine while Joan and Gail remained in 
Peoria. "Fine, upstairs sleeping." Joan didn't feel like talking about how sickly Gail 
4 1  
had looked, or about the inappropriate comics. Not while he was smiling, and she felt 
so comfortable in his arms. She lifted her chin to kiss him. His face was still smooth 
from his morning shave. 
They sat at the table and quietly scooped casserole onto their plates. Joan 
watched in wonder as Jeff loaded his. He did try to make things work; he hadn't com­
plained about much of anything since Gail's illness. 
"I don't know if Gail should be back in school yet," she said. 
Jeff stabbed at a hunk of tuna, then looked out the window. The glow from the 
kitchen showed no snow falling, and the thawing lake had disappeared in the dark­
ness. Jeff bit into the tuna, chewed it slowly. "I thought we'd finished that discussion. 
The doc said she was ready. Besides, she's made it through her first few days okay." 
"Yes, but this afternoon Gail couldn't even make it off the bus. The driver had to 
help her. I felt like a horrible mother." Joan flushed as she remembered the driver 
spitting on their lawn. 
"She's bound to have her good days and bad days. As long as her blood counts 
are good, her doctor said it's important that we let her work through—" 
"Have you felt her body recently? There's nothing there." The fork in her hand 
trembled against her plate. 
"That's why Dr. Benson thinks—" 
"Fuck Dr. Benson! What do think?" She edged to the fronyto ouf  her chair. 
Jeff rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, then looked back at Joan. 
His eyes had reddened. "I think Gail's going to be okay. But we'll go see Dr. Benson 
42 
on Monday. Can this wait till Monday?" 
Part of Joan wanted to take Gail for a blood test right now. But she needed to 
believe him, and to trust that the concern on Jeffs face matched her own. Joan sat 
back in her chair and nodded. It was Thursday. Gail could get through one more day 
of school. Jeffs hand reached across the table, and Joan clasped it for a moment. 
Then she stood, went to the stove, and fixed a plate to take to Gail. 
The next morning, thirty-four degrees and sunny, Joan stood at the counter 
reading PeorTiah eJ ournal Star and slurping the last of her fiber cereal. Before Jeff 
had left for work, he'd made her promise Gail would go to school, unless she threw 
up. "She wants to go," he had said. "You'll see." 
When she saw Gail out of the corner of her eye, Joan called to her. Gail froze 
on the cusp of the entry way, her face obscured by the hood of her puffy coat. "I was 
thinking I'd just drive you to school today." 
Gail was silent for several seconds. "How come?" She turned to face Joan, her 
hood shadowing her thin cheeks. "I like riding the bus with everyone else." 
"Because I have an appointment in the area," Joan lied. And suddenly, the pros­
pect of a sunny morning drive cheered her. 
"Are you going to pick me up, too?" 
"Sure." Joan knelt to snap Gail's coat. Her daughter's face seemed to have more 
color this morning. "Maybe we can go get ice cream." 
Gail's eyes narrowed slightly, as if cautious of a trick. "Isn't it too cold for that?" 
43 
"What would you rather have?" 
"Hot dogs." 
"All right then. We'll have hot dogs." 
Gail hoisted her backpack higher as she turned away, and Joan noticed the flap 
hanging open. "Hold on." As she zipped it closed, she saw copies of Batgirl and Alf. 
During the fifteen-minute drive to St. Thomas Elementary, Joan snuck several 
glances at her silent daughter. Before chemo, Gail had always loved to hear her own 
voice. She would sing "25 or 6 to 4" along with Chicago when Joan played their 
greatest hits in the car, and just last year, in what she called her "twinkling moment," 
she had played Constanze Mozart in her class's production of Of and Mozart. 
Now, but for the clanging ring, Gail even threw up quietly. 
St. Thomas was a two-story cement building hemmed in by tall rows of poplars. 
The building had initially been designed as a minimum-security prison, until the city 
changed course at the last minute. Joan had seen holes in the window sills designed 
for metal bars when she'd attended a parent-teacher conference. 
She kissed her daughter, and barely resisted holding onto Gail's book bag as she 
clambered out. Joan had promised Jeff one more day. She slumped as she watched 
Gail disappear into the school. She could hardly distinguish Gail's reedy body be­
neath her baggy jeans and coat. Joan tried to picture her daughter inside the building, 
striding through the drab hallway in search of the cell block that held her homeroom 
class. 
Joan turned into the residential neighborhood behind the school, wondering 
44 
how she would manage to wait for the bird clock at home to announce 2:00. She'd run 
out of projects. She stopped the car on a deserted street she didn't recognize. It had 
the same tall poplars, but more tightly packed; their branches rose higher, reaching 
into the blue sky above. The sidewalks undulated, bent and cracked by the poplars' 
stretching, thirsty roots. 
Joan rolled down the window and felt the nip of the cold air. She turned off her 
cell phone and reclined her seat, then dug through the bottom of her purse for the ny­
lon pouch her mother had given her. Inside the Navajo-patterned bag was about a 
quarter-ounce of marijuana. Her mother had a prescription for her arthritis. After Joan 
rolled a joint, she took a long hit and sank deeper into the leather upholstery. She 
brought the joint to her lips two more times, three, four, until she felt the urge to sleep 
and llicked it out the window. A few seconds later, she was out. 
Gail's brown hair is long again—See, honey, quick as lightning!—down beyond 
her knees now. Tie it up, Gail, don't let it touch the noor—but Gail doesn't listen, 
smiling and sitting with Garret in a tree house, thirty years old and picnicking with 
their two redheaded children. The planks of the treehouse extend across the window 
as Joan watches from below, and all she can see now is Gail's lustrous hair, still grow­
ing, pushing through the gaps—she reaches for it as it snakes to the ground, grasps it. 
Heaping tufts of hair come loose and turn gray and rough. She looks up, finds the 
window open again, and watches every last strand pull free from Gail's head. A faint 
green fog issues from the treehouse, Gail's silhouette sinks from sight, and Joan hears 
45 
a distant metal rattle. She sits on the ground and cries into her daughter's coarse hair. 
Joan woke to a horn blaring. She felt wetness on her cheeks and studied her 
empty arms. Another honk came as a rusted yellow van sped by. The back of Joan's 
car was sticking several feet into the street. 
Joan could barely start the car with her chilled fingers, but cranked the cold air 
for a minute anyway to rouse herself and ventilate the interior. She had been asleep 
for an hour. She pulled the car away, and after two turns found a street she recog­
nized. Maybe she would spend some time in the backyard shed and check on her gar­
dening supplies. She had promised to let Gail help her with the planters when the 
weather warmed. Gail had requested butternut squash. 
As she passed the school she saw a bright figure slip into the bushes to her 
right. Joan eased the accelerator as her mind processed what she had seen, then she 
slammed on the brakes and got out of the car. 
Gail's orange coat blazed amid the patchy brown hedge. "Gail!" she called, her 
mind suddenly lucid. The coat remained motionless. "Gail!" Joan's muscles tensed. 
She reached in the hedge and grabbed a handful of orange. As she pulled, the 
nylon slipped through her fingers and Gail tumbled onto the sidewalk. Joan grasped 
her coat firmly with both hands, her breath heaving. Gail trembled and looked every­
where but at Joan. Her hood was down, and bits of the hedge stuck to her hair. Joan 
remembered Gail in the treehouse in her dream, gone bald once more, and hoped only 
that this hair would have the chance to keep growing. 
46 
"What do you think you're doing!" Joan's breath fogged in the crisp air, but she 
felt only heat within. "Why aren't you in school?" 
Gail cried in halting sobs. Joan's anger and fear faded. She moved her hands up 
to Gail's short, coarse hair, then stroked her daughter's face. Her lips close to Gail's 
ear, she said, "My job is to take care of you, honey. I can't do that if you run away." 
"The kids were calling me 'Frail Gail,' " Gail said. "I just want to go home." 
"Yes." Joan helped her daughter to her feet. "I'll take you home." 
When Jeff came home, the nightingale's call had just trailed away, and a nearly 
full moon had risen beyond the living room window. Joan lay on the couch alongside 
a sleeping Gail, reading through a stack of her daughter's comics. She heard the clink­
ing of JelTs keys as he placed them on the counter, and she imagined his frown as he 
looked at the empty dinner table. Joan and Gail had eaten three hours earlier. 
Joan had wanted to somehow salvage the day, so she had her daughter point to 
things she wanted. Gail sat on the kitchen's island, her chin on her palms, and consid­
ered the pantry for a minute or two while Joan held the cupboards wide. "Rice-a-
Roni," Gail whispered. Joan selected it. "Macaroni and cheese," a bit louder. Joan 
pulled it down. "Brownies." Gail's eyes widened as Joan grabbed the box without 
hesitation. 
"How's Gail?" Jeff asked. 
Joan turned. Jeff stood against the island, his Homburg tipped down over his 
forehead and his arms crossed. His shoulders seemed more slumped than usual. Joan 
47 
arched her eyebrows and affected a smile. "She made it through the week. She's been 
out off and on for a few hours." She had come to see this morning as a private mo­
ment of understanding between mother and daughter. Some burdens she needed to 
bear alone. 
"Listen—" Jeff leaned forward to remove his suit coat. 
Joan tensed. He never followed that word with anything good. 
"I got a call from Gail's teacher earlier." 
Joan shifted her daughter off her chest, and Gail looked up with half-open eyes. 
Joan sat up to face her husband. "Yeah, Gail had some trouble this morning." 
" 'Trouble'?" He folded his coat in half and laid it on the kitchen table. "Her 
teacher said she was missing, so I tried to call you, but your phone was off. I had left 
the office and was about to call the police when the principal called and said you had 
found her." 
Gail sat up now, too. She stretched her arms and looked from Jeff to Joan. 
"Yes," Joan said. She lifted Gail onto her lap. "I called the school to let them 
know she was safe." 
"I suppose it would have been too much to ask for you to call me, too?" Jeff 
swept his arms wide, palms upturned, but kept his voice level. 
"I had Gail to deal with!" She hugged her daughter to her chest. Gail reached 
for her hand, and they interlocked their fingers. 
"Your hands are full. I get that." Jeff emptied his pockets in the wicker basket. 
"That's why Mom's flying in from Madison on Sunday night. I thought you might 
48 
that is, with Gail still sick, I thought you could use the help." 
Immediately Joan smelled cigarette smoke. "What's she going to do? She's in 
worse shape than Gail—" 
Jett slowly shook his head, and she felt Gail's eyes on her. Gail squeezed her 
hand tight. 
"I'm going to be okay now, right Mom?" Her eyes were dry, but wide and bright 
as the moon behind her. Its white light shone on Gail's back. 
"Of course you are." She stroked Gail's hair. It was slightly longer and softer 
than she remembered. 
Gail leaned into Joan's chest, and Joan dropped her hand to her daughter's back. 
"1 don't mind Grandma coming," Gail said. "We had fun when she was here before, 
when Dad was hurt." 
"Joan?" Jeff said from the island. He removed his hat and cradled the crown in 
his hand. "What do you think?" 
Vi would arrive Sunday night toting her pink suitcase and handbag full of Vir­
ginia Slims, grinning and showing off her yellowed teeth. She would sit next to Gail 
in the backseat of the car on the way back from the airport, and they would share sto­
ries and make plans for the coming week, or weeks. Vi would take Gail shopping 
again, and maybe drive her into Chicago. They would stop first at North Clark Street 
for the caramel corn at "Nuts on Clark"—where Joan had twice taken Gail since mov­
ing here—and then maybe go ice skating, if Gail felt up to it. Vi would watch from 
outside the rink, leaning on the railing and eating caramel corn, cheering on Gail 
49 
every time she skated by. Gail would smile widely, and the hair on her head would be 
just an eighth-inch longer than it was now. Joan would be at home for all of this. She 
would dust a few things after Jeff left for work, maybe cook something, and then 
stand over the sink and watch the shifting waters of Upper Peoria Lake. The ice 
would just about be melted. Before too long, it would be warm enough to water ski 
and plant the garden. Joan would then remember that she needed to go to the store to 
get the seeds for Gail's butternut squash. Hours later, Gail and Vi would return to find 
her there by the sink, and her daughter would still have the same wide smile. 
Gail wrapped her arms tighter around Joan's middle, and breathed in deeply. 
When the exhale came, Joan felt its strength and warmth against her chest. 
"Yes," she said. "We'll need to ready the guest room, then." 
50 
Shelter 
Jacob watched as the baby's curled figure filled the monitor. Her puffy little 
body squirmed, and his own stomach tossed and turned: in six months, Lily would be 
born, and he would watch her squirm on the embroidered pink sheets Lena had al­
ready folded neatly into her crib. Lily, the darling namesake of Lena's grandmother. 
Jacob was excited to finally, at thirty-three, have pictures of his own to pass around 
the office—but he didn't yet know what lay beneath this anticipation. He figured he 
would find out when he first felt Lily breathing in his arms. She would cry and smile, 
and he would know. 
"It's certainly a girl," the doctor said, directing his laser pen toward the ultra­
sound image. "At this point, you can tell more from what's not there than what is." 
Dr. Frank glanced at Jacob, and Jacob offered a small laugh. He was simply 
glad to have a doctor who expressed human emotion. Jacob and Lena had been to an­
other gynecologist a few weeks prior, but the experience had exasperated both of 
them. Jacob hadn't liked the way Dr. Jenson had looked at Lena. Dr. Jenson had the 
taut, thin build of a distance runner, and wore thick glasses that magnified his dark 
brown eyes. They had been too focused, his face too intent, as he examined Lena's 
stomach. Then the crotch of Dr. Jenson's pants moved as he leaned over Lena. Jacob 
almost demanded they leave right then, but bit his lip. This had been Lena s first big 
decision of a—not unwanted, but sudden pregnancy, and Jacob had promised to let 
5 1  
her have final say during the process. He was relieved when Lena suggested after­
ward that they try someone else. "I noticed he didn't smile once," she had said. They 
decided to pretend the appointment didn't happen and try again with someone new. 
Dr. Frank now looked at Lena's stomach kindly, almost reverently. His eyes sof­
tened as he examined her, and he asked before he touched. 
Still, Lena looked uncomfortable as the doctor placed his hands on her. She 
hadn't yet become accustomed to this new part of her—something to be probed and 
examined. She had been so skinny; now, she fretted about bulging so quickly. Her 
favorite checkered t-shirt lay torn at the base of their dresser after it had shown her 
belly when she pulled it on that morning. But Jacob thought Lena looked even more 
striking than before. Tiny tingles ran up his spine when he watched her in the arm­
chair in the corner of his apartment where they lived, wearing her reading glasses and 
sweats, a novel propped on her stomach. He stared, too, in bed when she wore baggy 
night shirts that suggested only an anthill of a bump beneath, until Lena eventually 
looked down from her book and nudged him with her elbow. "She doesn't like you 
staring," Lena would say. 
Dr. Frank now stood straight, his own belly a slight paunch, and addressed them 
both. "I can always tell by this point how they'll come out," he said, roaming the ul­
trasound image with his laser. "And she's going to be a beauty. 
Lena looked at Jacob and offered a broad smile. For the past three months that 
smile had been fleeting; on top of doctor appointments, they needed to move into a 
house with a room for Lily. Jacob's excitement had faded as Lena raised ever more 
52 
logistical concerns about preschool boundaries and crib designs. But the glow now on 
her face, which showed through every freckle under her eyes, sent through him the 
same trembling energy as when they first met. 
Only five months ago, fate had led them both to Schlotzsky's Deli in West 
Eugene on their lunch breaks. They had sat down at the same table simultaneously. 
"Is this seat taken?" Jacob said. He was pleased to have thought of anything at all to 
say to this woman who, even at that first moment, he wanted for his wife. She said 
no, and their courtship began. Lena's smile progressed from embarrassed to confident 
and relaxed, and Jacob ate as slowly as possible. They talked about his job servicing 
power lines for the local electric co-op, and her job selling items for people at internet 
auction, and then an upcoming production of Like they had both heard about 
on the radio. He said he had once played Cassio in Othello, not sure if that would im­
press her, and she leaned in and confessed to having played Feste the Clown in 
Twelfth Night. They decided to meet again that weekend for the play. It was not only 
this shared love for theater, not just Lena's gleaming orange hair and rosy skin, but 
her conspiratorial leprechaun-green eyes that made Jacob want to sit with her through 
the rest of their lives. 
Jacob felt sure he could nurture and raise Lily with Lena by his side. 
Dr. Frank had been wrong. 
Months later, Jacob tried in vain to see beauty in Lily after his wife's screaming 
hours of labor. Lily's color was far too dark, and a glassy red and purple cord twisted 
53 
around her neck. Then there was the ringing silence. Lena's moans halted, but Lily 
did not cry, or squirm, or kick. The number of white coats in the room tripled almost 
immediately, but when the last one stepped away several minutes later, Lily lay still. 
Dr. Frank shook his head, and Jacob picked Lily up, wishing only that her chest might 
rise and fall. He could hardly understand why it didn't, and could not pull his eyes 
from this still form that had come from his wife. When he finally looked up, he saw 
Lena sprawled motionless across the hospital bed, her exhausted body yielding to the 
bed's wet sheets. She seemed neither his wife of two months nor the woman he had 
met at lunch so long ago, simply—flat. Against her forehead and eyes stuck sweat-
matted hair; her drawn face had lost its color and contours; and her belly sagged, the 
peel of a fruit mined for its flesh. 
Lena raised dull eyes to the ceiling. They closed slowly, then snapped open 
again, and Lena began to wail. Her earlier moans had scared Jacob in their depth and 
length, but these shrieks were sharper and bore a keener sorrow than any human 
sound he knew. She leveled her eyes on Jacob. Tears built and dripped slowly; she 
lacked the energy to sob. Jacob registered the weight of the baby in his arms—he 
didn't know how heavy she was, and now there was no reason to weigh her—and the 
truth finally penetrated. Terror poured over him, his arms shook, and the baby's head 
lolled. He handed the baby to Dr. Frank and hurried from the room. His tennis shoes 
caught against the floor, and he stumbled into the far wall, catching himself against 
the warm glass ot the window. Sharp August sunlight blinded his eyes. He staggered 
down the hallway to a restroom a hundred yards away, and threw up almost as soon 
54 
as he entered the first stall. Not all of it went in the toilet. He watched it come forth, 
his lunch, then water and bile. He sank to the cool floor, drooped his head, and failed 
to cry, empty. He fingered his rolling wedding band, thinking of the same ring on 
Lena's finger, and passed it over the knuckle and back. He leaned forward and spat 
thick foam into the toilet, flushed, and walked back to his wife. 
One month later, Jacob returned from work to find a pet carrier and fitty-pound 
bag of dog food on his side of the garage. He parked in the driveway and sat with his 
hands on the wheel and his seatbelt buckled. Lena had never mentioned wanting a 
dog, and judging by the packing-crate-sized carrier, it was going to be big. Now 
hardly seemed the time. Lena was going in to work a few hours a week—but neither 
slept well. They kissed each other goodnight, then lay in silence for hours. If Jacob 
had to get up with the dog, he doubted he'd have the energy to work on power poles 
all day. 
A scratchy bark came as Jacob turned his key in the front door, and a foot-tall 
yellow lab squirmed out. The dog sniffed his boots briefly before bounding to a patch 
of grass by the sidewalk and crouching. Lena appeared and beamed at the lab, which 
now wriggled on its back right where it had peed. 
"So." Jacob raised his eyebrows. 
"Saved from the shelter." Lena leaned against the door frame, in baggy gray 
sweatpants and a sweatshirt. She had worn some combination of sweats for the past 
month, despite her new morning workout regimen. She wore them even to bed, and 
55 
Jacob felt sad to look at and touch a body of cotton every night. He struggled to ac­
cept and love this new flat, fit Lena when he could still imagine a belly, even a baby, 
underneath her loose clothes. 
"That would explain its lying in its own urine. Does it have a name?" 
"Yes, she does. Lily." 
Jacob's arms suddenly seemed to be supporting a phantom weight, and he 
leaned back against the rail of their porch. "Lena, I can't call her that." 
"But that's actually her name. I found her at the Humane Society. They had a 
cute cocker spaniel, too, but I thought you would like the lab more." Her head tilted 
to the side as she watched the dog, and she hunched up slightly against the door 
frame. She looked like a shy child. 
"Fuck its name. I'm not calling it that, and I don't want it in our house." 
Lena sank to her knees and snapped her fingers. The dog trotted up, and she 
collected it in her arms. She kissed its forehead, then extended it to Jacob. But his 
arms couldn't take any more weight. Jacob felt ill and pushed past her to the stairs 
inside. 
"We needed something, you know." Lena's voice cracked. 
Jacob walked past the closed door that hid the crib Lena refused to let him take 
down. She wanted to preserve Lily's memory, she'd said, but she, too, mostly avoided 
the room. It had become a stale tomb, as if Lily were buried there. He pushed the im­
age from his mind and collapsed on their bed's down comforter, crying. He felt with 
acute pain the void that came with their baby's death, but didn't know how best to fill 
56 
it, or if he was ready to. He was still feeling out his griefs dimensions. How different 
it must be from Lena's. Jacob's nausea grew as he cried, and he went to the toilet to 
throw up. After the last heaves, he sat back against the wall. A sharp bark rang out 
from the kitchen below. 
Once Jacob had changed clothes, he closed himself in the upstairs office. He 
wrote checks for several bills, then stilled. Hunger built in his stomach; such a simple 
pang to understand and so easy to fix. Eventually, Jacob returned to the bedroom and 
lay quietly with eye shades on. When Lena came to bed, he heard no dog. Not even 
Lena could sleep with Lily in the same room. 
Three weeks later, snow had already begun to fall in earnest in the Cascades. 
Jacob marveled at the early-winter flakes piling up. Only his carbon-fiber snowshoes 
kept him from plunging through the lumpy white powder that stretched in all direc­
tions. Eugene had been similarly colorless when he and Micah had left that morning, 
everything muted beneath the endless gray banks of October rain clouds. Micah, Ja­
cob's coworker, moved briskly ahead, and Jacob tried to quicken his pace in his un­
wieldy shoes. 
Lena would be in the woods by now, too. She had sent Jacob off on his over-
nighter with a kiss, then waited for Kim from work to come get her and take her to 
Silver Falls. Today was their personal "Explore Oregon" day, a suggestion from their 
therapist. Jacob thought it sounded silly, but when he had seen Lena nod, he had, too. 
This morning, she had looked the best she had in weeks. She seemed dressed up in 
57 
her boots, nylon pants, and raincoat, and her smile showed that she was feeling better. 
"I definitely saw a prostitute at the mall yesterday," Micah called, a dozen yards 
up the hill. "Then on my way home I caught a homeless guy shitting on a rock." 
Jacob took a dim view of Micah's crassness, but let this statement go. Jacob had 
basically invited himself when Micah had mentioned his plans last week in the utility 
truck; he'd feared he wouldn't be able to find anyone else to explore Oregon with. The 
last time Jacob had seen a prostitute was six months before for his bachelor party in 
Las Vegas. Most of his high school friends still lived in Reno. This woman had been 
leaning against the sphinx of the Luxor, draped in sequined gold. Jacob refocused all 
his energy on moving his feet, heavier with every step. His quads tightened from the 
exertion, despite the occasional pole-climbing he had to do at work. He was now a 
mile and a half from both Micah's Bronco and the snow shelter ahead, though, so he 
had no choice but to keep moving. 
Micah neared the top of the rise, and Jacob tried conversation to make him slow 
down. "You're always—" Jacob paused to regain his breath—"saying that you saw a 
prostitute." 
"But this time I did!" 
"So what?" Jacob asked. 
"You just should have seen her, that's all. Spiked heels, fishnets, vinyl shorts 
that barely kept her legs in. She was just like you would imagine." 
But Jacob imagined someone different. She had deep brown skin and was 
wrapped in gold, poised on two four-inch, Dorothy-red heels—the woman Jacob had 
solicited as he shuffled away from his friends on the gaming floor at 4 a.m., drunk. 
She had seemed a mystery of light and dark, her skin absorbing and her dress reflect­
ing the glow of the hotel's floodlights, and he suddenly wanted to take her to his room 
and clutch her, pull the light out of her. For fifty dollars, she would be his. Jacob 
reached for his wallet before he realized what he was doing. He drunk. It was 
four a.m.He would soon have a wife. He hurried to the casino entrance and didn't 
look back. But it was something else that had brought him to his senses. With Lily 
growing steadily inside of Lena, he had already felt married. He considered himself 
no less of a husband without the baby, but struggled to convince Lena of this reason­
ing. Whether or not she acted like his wife seemed to depend on which side of the bed 
she rose from. 
Jacob's breath became ragged as the hill steepened near the top, and he was 
thankful when Micah stopped to pull out the map, trying to manage its folds with his 
gloved fingers. Micah looked abominable in his winter get-up. His white winter coat 
had turned a faint brown from heavy use, and his features were hardly visible be­
tween his hood and the untrimmed beard spreading up his face and down his neck. 
Micah was thick, too, like the old growth around them; he could probably walk across 
the snow without the help of snowshoes. 
"How does it look?" Jacob pushed his merino wool beanie away from his eye­
brows. 
"Just another half-mile to the overnight shelter. We're making good time, con-
59 
Micah's words seemed to hold no spite, but Jacob and Micah had only ever 
gone out tor beers together. He doubted Micah could help him come to any new place 
ot peace. Besides, Jacob was nearing the point of being able to pull through on his 
own. Lena was the one who remained astray. He'd insisted on counseling for her 
benefit, with the outside hope the therapist would suggest removing the dog. She 
hadn't. 
Jacob's phone beeped inside his jacket pocket, and a few robins in the trees, 
perched on branches like statues, took off in quick, swerving flight. The hill had ap­
parently brought him into service range. Micah shot him a dour look, then folded up 
the map as Jacob listened to a message from Lena: honey, I hope you're having 
fun wyiotuhr  friend. at home. I called KI'imm  to postpone. sorry—just needed 
to stay Lilwy ittohd ay. See you tomorrow when you get back. Love you." 
"Well?" Micah asked. 
"My wife. Problems with the dog." Micah knew about the baby, but Jacob had 
been too embarrassed to explain Explore Oregon, and didn't teel like talking things 
over with him. 
Micah shrugged. "I'm a cat person myself." He started forward, and Jacob fol­
lowed. 
Jacob knew that Lena had changed back into her sweats and lay in the den with 
the dog. What right did she have to break her plans and remain home, while he 
trekked through the mountains on tennis rackets? 
Jacob resisted the dog out of loyalty. He was trying to move past Lily, just to 
60 
feel normal again, but sometimes he felt that as though he was still her father. He had 
held her in his arms, however briefly, and felt her warmth, before she—what? Had 
Lily died, or had she never been alive? Was it Lily in Lena's womb when they had 
read about the big hungry bear and the red ripe strawberry—or just a failed group of 
cells? Had she felt anything when she heard his voice? There in the delivery room, 
blue like a large bruise, Jacob couldn't believe that she had ever thought or felt. 
She had kicked, though. Lena had lived with these kicks for the better part of 
the year, and she often placed Jacob's hand on her stomach to feel them—the only 
time she wasn't self-conscious about her belly. Afterwards, Lena said she felt phan­
tom kicks, especially when she didn't eat—which was often—and her stomach 
growled. Jacob told her they would go away, but that further saddened her. Recently, 
he had caught her on her back with the dog on her stomach. When she had seen him, 
she had returned to making her decoupage boxes. These she intended for the kids at 
the orphanage—"There's no reason they shouldn't have a bit of color in their day, 
too," she'd said—but she would never deliver them. She needed something to drag 
her from the cell of grief she'd made. Why Jacob couldn't be that something, he didn't 
know. 
Finally, with Jacob's legs protesting fiercely, the trees thinned and they stepped 
into a clearing. Micah emerged first, then Jacob. Criss-crossed tracks led to a log for­
est service shelter at the far end. Wisps of smoke were beginning to spiral away from 
the chimney in the peaked roof. They trudged across the last stretch of snow, and Mi­
cah pushed open the door. 
61 
Two people were stooped building a fire at the opposite end of the rectangular 
shelter, bundled in snow clothes. Only when they turned could Jacob distinguish 
them: a woman and a man in their early forties, he with a half-moon scar running 
down his right cheekbone into the scruff of his beard, she with close-cropped black 
hair. 
"Howdy, strangers!" Micah said. 
"Right back at you," the man said, and gave a friendly nod. "I'm Bill Neeson, 
and this is my wife, Darla." He gestured with a piece of kindling toward her. 
Darla waved a mittened hand. She wore khaki boots with elaborate puffs of 
wool overflowing from their tops, and a matching red jacket and pants. She looked 
like the robins from earlier. 
Micah and Jacob unlatched their snowshoes and crossed the room. Bill offered 
Jacob a firm shake; a thin, hairless line ran across the back of his hand another scar. 
Jacob wondered it there were others, imagining a grid of scars like the tracks outside, 
and whether they had multiple stories or one. He moved his hand to a scar at his hair­
line, a stamp-sized right angle from his first week back at work after the stillbirth. 
He'd become lightheaded as he rode the truck's lift to the top of a pole, and fainted. 
He awoke on the grass with Micah over him. 
"You fellas have impeccable timing," Darla said. "We just arrived fifteen min­
utes ago." 
"We haven't even had time to properly warm each other up yet!" Bill leaned 
over to kiss his wife. She raised her eyebrows, but didn't shy away. That morning, Ja-
62 
cob had been amazed when Lena had kissed him with Micah watching from the 
driveway. 
"You just watch yourself," Darla said with a grin. "You might end up with an­
other scar." She pulled an imaginary knife from the waist of her pants and sliced it 
through the air at Bill. 
"Don't worry, guys," Bill said, running his index finger along his scar. "It was 
just a hunting accident." 
They both seemed crazy, but some excitement was a relief. Jacob's lite seemed 
to have been on mute since he and Lena picked out Lily's tiny mahogany violin case 
of a coffin. The silence and stillness of the mortuary had followed them and taken 
root in their house. 
Three sets of bunk beds lined the wall. Bill and Darla were set up on the bunks 
in the corner, their bags rolled out on top and bottom. Their sleeping separately sur­
prised Jacob—whatever his and Lena's distance in daylight, they lay touching all 
through the night as they drifted in and out of sleep. He would have felt strangely 
alone sleeping apart from Lena while in the same room. Maybe the nightly rituals of 
marriage changed and loosened after so many years. But Bill was also a few inches 
over six feet, so maybe it was just a practical matter. Jacob and Micah each took a 
bunk for himself, then rejoined Bill and Darla around the fire. It was only five-thirty, 
but Jacob's legs were cramping more frequently. He would have to sleep soon. 
Soon the rich, greasy aroma of baked beans and chili, and the Mediterranean 
spices of a can of stewed tomatoes filled the room. Bill had packed in two bottles of 
63 
wine trom his father's vineyard—Jacob could hardly imagine bearing such superflu­
ous weight for three miles of snowshoeing—and he passed around plastic cups while 
Micah tended the food and fire. Now that Jacob was sitting, his hunger had grown 
ravenous, and he became steadily lightheaded as he sipped red wine in the warmth of 
the wood stove. The room had no windows, and his head nodded, jerked up and refo-
cused, then nodded again. Lena would be eating dinner now, too, or, having finished, 
be walking down the hallway to the den. He imagined her coming up to the door that 
only she opened, once every week or two, turning the handle slowly and entering. 
Seeking the rear wall in the dark room and standing over the empty crib in the corner. 
Bending to pick up the blanket folded at the toot, holding it tight. 
"Where are y'all coming from?" Darla asked Jacob. 
Jacob cleared his throat. "Eugene. A couple of hours south. You?" 
"Astoria. Decided it was time to get out of town for a 'lovers' weekend,' you 
know?" 
Darla had a chubby face, though she was not unattractive for it. More like she 
had yet to shed the last of her baby fat. 
"I'm on something of a getaway myself, I suppose," Jacob said. 
"So you and Micah...?" Darla nodded at his wedding band. 
Jacob let out a peal of laughter, too loud for the small room, and Micah and Bill 
turned from the stove to look at him. "No, I'm married. To a woman, I mean. Lena's 
back at home." 
"Watching the kids?" 
"Something like that," Jacob said. 
"We decided it was best not to have kids," Darla said. 
Jacob's right quad seized, and he extended the leg to relieve it, holding it aloft. 
"Why?" 
"It—would have taken too much of our time and energy, taken away the close­
ness Bill and 1 have." 
A few trembling flames were visible through the wood stove's slightly open 
door. 
"Are you okay?" Darla cocked her head. 
"I'm just a bit overheated is all. I need a refill." He walked to the table, picked 
up the wine bottle and looked at it. If he had another cup-full, he wouldn t be able to 
stem his tears. 
"Dinner is served!" Micah called. 
When Jacob returned to the fire, he sat opposite Darla. Within ten minutes, the 
food had vanished, and Bill and Darla brought out a pack of cards. Jacob took pait 
half-heartedly for a tew rounds ot gin rummy, then excused himselt and went to his 
bunk. 
Even away from the fire, Jacob felt feverish, and his legs were stiffening. He 
decided to step outside. A turbulent dark had fallen, composed of shitting shadows 
and rustling trees. Black pine branches hung over the back side of the shelter, as 
though they were an open hand preparing to lift it from the ground. Across the clear­
ing, a quarter moon illuminated the snow with a soft glow. Jacob headed left into the 
65 
woods. 
Without his snowshoes, he sank two feet with every step. This postholing was 
even more laborious than snowshoeing, but he had no destination, and contented him­
self with the crunch of each step. Stars bright and faint spread across the sky, filling 
and texturing the darkness in a way the ambient light of the city made impossible. 
Jacob had seen some of these same stars with Lena from their hot tub, but never so 
clearly and in such depth. A longing arose to stay here—Lena could come, too, and 
stand with him in the snow. He would kiss her under this blanket of stars without her 
shying away. They would stock the shelter and never go back. 
He moved up a slight ridge. From the top, he made out Orion, the hunter of the 
night sky. Three dazzling stars made up the constellation's belt, and close by, Sirius, 
the Dog Star, nipped at its heels. Jacob began to cry. Seeing these stars, that star, mil­
lions of miles away—and millions of years in the past—and Lena always just as far, 
was too much. Even their marriage couldn't bridge such a gap. His mistake had been 
thinking that it could. 
Jacob turned toward a scraping sound and saw a beam of light bobbing up and 
down along the snow. He was surprised when Darla emerged from the darkness. 
"How," she said, breathing in bursts, "did you make it this tar without your 
snowshoes?" 
"Thinking about other things, I guess." He looked back at the sky, but now saw 
only the residual glow ot the flashlight. 
"You aren't really okay, are you?" she asked. 
66 
He thought about lying again, but she deserved the truth after seeking him out. 
"No, I'm not. Earlier, what I said about my wife—we don't have any kids. A month 
and a half ago we almost had a daughter, but she died during birth." 
"1 thought something awful might have happened. You still look like a deer in 
the headlights." She paused, taking a moment to look at the stars. "Was she planned?" 
The question took Jacob aback, but Darla's tone was gentle. "No. Actually, Lena 
became pregnant a few months after we met." 
"Well, given and taken away by fate. Maybe it was for the best." 
His impulse was to yell at this stranger. But Darla's frank honesty was refresh­
ing, and no anger built inside. That he didn't have to bear this woman's pity was a re­
lief. "Maybe—" He thought of Lena's shame over her belly, her retreat into herself. 
"—maybe it was. But what kind of parent can say that and believe it?" 
"I lied earlier, too," Darla said. "We tried for years to have a child. Couldn't do 
it. Never figured out if it was me or Bill, but nothin' doin. These days, it s true I don t 
want a child, but there was a time I dearly wanted one. A daughter, a son. Didn t mat­
ter." 
"I'm sorry." 
"Here 1 am with Bill, our love all the stronger for what we've gone through. 
That was our test. We passed. And if there's not ever another little Darla in the world, 
I can live with that." She swept her arms wide, encompassing everything around 
them, and her flashlight played across the treetops before giving way to the black sky 
and faraway twinkles of light. "Go ahead and take a minute. But if you need anything 
67 
out of Micah, you better come back sooner rather than later. He pulled out a quart of 
whiskey, and he and Bill are not long for this world." 
She turned, and her light faded into the pines. He pulled out his wallet and re­
moved a picture. He could only see its outlines, but knew it by heart. He and Lena 
were in the theater lobby during the intermission of As You Like It. She wore a knee-
length pale yellow dress, and her head was tilted as Jacob explained some plot point 
about the previous act. She wasn't yet smiling, but her lips were slightly upturned. He 
stared at her, imagining. Imagining what their life would have been like if Lily had 
lived. Years of pictures and trips and landmark birthdays, of tending off boyfriends, 
of sports teams and parent meetings—of devotion to Lily. And to each other? Maybe 
he and Lena would have drifted apart anyway, gradually; maybe they would have di­
vorced and left Lily in the lurch between homes. 
His eyes had readjusted to the night, and Jacob followed his tracks back by the 
light of the moon and stars. He had no answer. He knew only that he felt severed. He 
pulled off his left glove and held his hand up to the sky, watching the starlight glint 
off his ring. Where before it offered a promise of love and union, it now seemed a 
sentence to a fractured life. Jacob rolled the ring smoothly over his knuckle and 
placed it in his pocket, then moved ott into the trees, back to the shelter. 
68 
Another Time Capsule 
Ed sat in his recliner, his torso rocking back and forth, and stared at his favorite 
photograph. His feet dangled off the end of the footrest, lifeless. Ice clinked a sooth­
ing rhythm against the sides of his tumbler as he swirled his glass and, for once, Ed 
felt no aches. 
hike the rest of Ed and Ann's two-story house, the living room was sparsely 
furnished. A painting by Ann hung on one white wall, a violence of splattered colors 
framed in black. A cigar store Indian stood in the corner opposite Ed; its original col­
ors had faded to a muted brown. Two photographs in ridged gold plating sat on oppo­
site ends of the mantle. At left, Ed and Ann posed in pastel formalwear at their re­
newal of vows ten years ago, when they came West from Georgia; looking at it made 
Ed clammy. He stared at the other. 
Reagan was one of the finest dogs to come from Royal Hounds; a greyhound fit 
to be shown, if Ed believed in such torn-fool nonsense. Reagan had followed the pho­
tographer's instructions with less sass than many human subjects might have shown. 
Now, the dog was gone. 
Ed studied the cubes in his Ron Zacapa Centenario rum, a liquor that had come 
from some exotic place he had once been but could not return to. His stiff joints 
would no longer bear the beautiful ivory beaches. Thousands of miniscule bubbles 
dotted the ice cubes, living in forced immobility, until Ed freed them with the heat 
69 
from his hands. He set the sweating drink on the lamp table, then ran his hand 
through his gray hair. The dampness from his hand was unsettling, and he quickly 
brought it back down. A few hairs came with it. 
"Are you going to sit there all night looking at that picture? Come on, Ed, come 
to bed." 
Ann stood behind him. Though her voice was dulcet, he cringed. He shifted his 
weight to his legs, paused to see if they would hold, and rose with a grunt. 
"I'm coming. 1 just need a moment to gather myself." 
"I hate going to bed alone," she said. "I like to feel your warmth." Ann offered 
her best sulking voice, extending the syllable of every word like an irritable adoles­
cent. 
Ed had a hard time believing she was fifty-five and receiving the same senior 
discount he did at sixty-nine—his age for one more day. It was the same surprise he'd 
felt three years into their marriage when Ann turned twenty-one and began to buy al­
cohol. 
Ed straightened and turned. His wife's petite body leaned against the kitchen 
doorframe, her eyes fixed on the floor. She no longer wore nightgowns, now that they 
had come to the Northwest, she wore the same flannel pajamas from the first leaf fall 
to the last violet bloom. Ed couldn't picture her naked body, though he imagined one 
firmer than his own. He'd read recently that Islamic law provided for a husband's sex­
ual satisfaction, and a younger Ed might have demanded the same had, in fact, on 
one or two occasions, he remembered with shame. But Ann wasn't quite so young 
70 
anymore, and Ed didn't harbor the same urges. 
"Ed?" She paused. "He's gone, you know." Ann's eyes rose to Reagan's photo­
graph. 
She said the words sweetly, bracingly, but Ed did not mistake the presence of 
something less benign. Ele scowled and looked at his drink. If she was trying to bait 
him, she would fail. "I'll see you in bed." 
Later, after a climb up the stairs made treacherous by his arthritis, Ed lay beside 
his sleeping wife. There had been three fingers of rum in his glass when Ann called 
him to bed, and he needed both hands to climb the stairs, so he'd downed the rest. 
Now the rum was coming on. The sheets stifled him and he threw them back. Ele de­
cided on his new Ethiopian blend for his morning coffee, then thought about the 
boundless hours to follow—every one of which would press upon him without Rea­
gan to take to the park. His career had been an unending stream of seventy-hour 
workweeks spent walking sweltering city pavement. He had hardly known what to do 
with himself when they moved to Felso, Washington to relax and ease his arthritis 
pain. 
"Ha, ease my pain..." 
Ann groaned beside him, and Ed tensed. Her favorite cousin lived here, Char-
lene, but Ed only saw her on holidays. Charlene was a mousy little brunette who re­
minded him of the innumerable squirrels in their neighborhood, a new development 
pressed up against the woods. Ed would have preferred moving to Santa Fe, or maybe 
Cody, Wyoming, some place with heat and character, with vestiges of the Old West. 
71 
Here it just rained all the time, and his joints felt as bad as ever. 
And his dog had gone missing, the second to do so. Reagan and his predecessor, 
Charley, both stayed outside because of Ann's allergies, and Ed had been careful to 
fence their backyard. Cougars roamed the woods, and people set traps. But with both 
dogs Ed had woken up to find a hole under the fence. Neither had come back or even 
been found. 
Ann clutched at Ed's broad chest. She had—wore?—long, curling eyelashes, 
and her soft brown hair nestled in below her neck, relaxed. Her pillow showed a trace 
of rouge, despite the scrubbing Ann had done before bed. Her smooth cheeks inflated 
as she breathed through her mouth, sending puffs of hot air onto Ed's arm. He tried to 
inch away, but her arms held firm, and any resistance sent waves of pain through his 
body. He settled for bunching up the sheet in front of her mouth. 
She had a surprise planned for him tomorrow. He hoped it wouldn't take too 
long. He hadn't checked with the Humane Society for two days. And Royal Hounds 
had left a message; there was a new greyhound, Edna, up for adoption. It was much 
too soon. Ann clutched at him again, and he gave up on leturning downstaiis. 
At nine the next morning, Ann led Ed into the sunlight and toward a square 
black crate in a rear corner of their backyard. "Happy birthday!" She'd been awake 
since six and finished oft a whole pot oi tea. 
Ed scowled. The squishing sound of their marshy lawn unnerved him, and Ann 
had let him finish only one cup of coffee. 
72 
1 hough the soft ground eased the burden on Ed's feet, moving forward felt as 
though he were walking in sand. 
"Well, it sure dwarfs the other one." Ed studied the dewy surface of the massive 
plastic packing crate, already secured by yards of duct tape. 
Ann tugged his hand and pulled him closer. "It's not every day you turn sev­
enty." She stood on her toes and whispered in his ear, "And who knows if you'll make 
it to eighty!" She giggled, and her broad smile matched the sun poking through the 
clouds. 
"So what's in it?" Ed asked. He shifted his weight between each painful foot. 
"I can't tell you, you know that." Ann's smile stretched wider. 
I ler self-satisfaction irritated Ed. He considered dispensing with the ceremony 
and leaving Ann to bury the box herself. "It's my present, and you just said I won't 
make it—" 
"Might not make it—" 
"Fine, might not make it to eighty," Ed said. "And I still don't know what's in 
the other one you've—" 
"We've—" 
"We've buried out here. 
She paused took a deep breath, as it recalling the start of a poem she learned in 
grade school. "We are placing a part of our present souls under the care of the earth, 
where it must remain undisturbed—-you therefore mustn't know which part. 
Ann paused, daring Ed to interject, but he bit his lip and let her continue. 
"Later, there may come a time when we find ourselves shiftless and adrift, and 
at that moment we will look to these capsules for guidance. For renewal—" 
Ed tuned out the rest of her spiritual platitudes. It was all a part of some New 
Age philosophy she had found. He was convinced Ann was making everything up on 
the spot. 
Ed tilted the crate first one way, then the other, divining its contents like a 
Christmas present. Ann had packed it well; nothing shifted inside. They lowered the 
box into the hole that Ann had sneaked off to dig the day before. Ed's knees creaked 
and his legs wobbled as he squatted, but they held. 
Ed tried for a moment to clear his mind and simply smell the juniper surround­
ing him, but he did not feel like he was placing some part of his soul under the lock 
and key of the earth to be rediscovered—or simply discovered—at a later date. It was 
simply a chore, a punishment even, though tor what he wasn't sure. Ed pictured Cool 
Hand Luke out in the prisonyard digging, digging, digging. But unlike that rebellious 
jailbird, Ed hadn't tried to escape. Maybe he ought to—it'd be something exciting for 
a change. 
Why there had to be such a cloud of mystery was beyond Ed. What was the use 
of a time capsule if he didn't know what was being encapsulated? Ann presented to­
day's burial as a birthday surprise, and he had to accept the gift graciously, but the 
first time capsule had not coincided with a birthday or anything else. Ann had sud­
denly felt the need to establish an accord with the earth. It was just like when she 
started feeding him fish oil for his arthritis. There was simply no telling. 
74 
After burying the box under a mound of soil, Ed allowed Ann to lead him by 
hand as they trudged back to the house. A few drops of rain pattered on their shoul­
ders as they reached the door. 
"Timeliness is next to godliness, as they say," Ann said. 
Ed wasn't sure that was exactly what they said, but let it go and stepped into the 
house. Ann veered toward the kitchen, and he hobbled to his chair. Only a tew mud 
spots marked his khaki pants from the digging. Ed hadn't decided how many fingers 
of Centenario yet, but thought he had earned quite a few. For now, Ed just sat. Iheir 
chore had consumed more of his morning than he had wagered, so he could endure a 
few hours here until lunch. Then he would see about the Human Society. Maybe Ann 
would drive him. 
Whatever pain he had felt after walking Reagan, these long, linking days of 
immobility and recline only intensified his suffering when he did try to move. He 
tried not to, and instead looked at the photograph on the mantle. Ed s right hand 
slipped down the side ot his chair, but his fingers scratched at nothing. Today was the 
eighth day. Now he just had Ann. 
She was gorgeous the day they renewed their vows. Her beauty still shone from 
the mantle photograph. They had chosen Easter for the ceremony, to symbolize the 
second life of their marriage out West, and had thought a pastel color scheme would 
enliven things. Ed found his baby blue suit downtown at a vintage store in thirty min­
utes. Ann had to drive the hour north to Seattle to find her dress. When she stood next 
to him in her pale purple gown, her brunette hair tied up into a nest, he felt the same 
75 
cold feet he had had twenty-eight years before at their wedding. 
But his feet were colder the second time around. They'd only been in town a 
month, and only Charlene attended the ceremony, as a witness. As pretty as Ann 
was—with hazel eyes that enraptured Ed (and, he was fairly sure, the priest), and skin 
the purest white, like sun-bleached sand—even so she no longer roused his desires. 
And so it was now. Her brand of beauty, naturally stunning and made-up to be 
perfect, was meant for a libertine. Those days were behind Ed. As his body failed 
him, physical intimacy was as much of a chore as digging a hole. He regretted that 
Ann still found joy in the digging and he could do nothing for her. 
She was silent now in the kitchen, probably busy preparing his lunch. Ever 
since Ed's health had forced him to retire, she had taken it upon herself to fix his 
every meal. He hadn't eaten the same thing twice in months. It was the least she could 
do, she said. But Ed wished she would do less. It had been too long since he had 
cranked a can opener and tasted greasy chili that had those little oily bubbles on top 
that you could never quite mix in. Ann was working her way thiough culinary 
Europe, with the occasional jump to the Pacific Rim, North American fare wasnt 
even a blip on the radar screen. What was that she had served with last nights dinner? 
OnigirilThat wouldn't do for an old man. 
Ed reached for a glass that wasn't yet there. He'd have to wait till after his 
chyssoise.A nn's latest. She had seen Alfred serve it in a Batman movie, she had said, 
and if it was good enough for Bruce Wayne, it was good enough for Ed. But after Ann 
had explained—and spelled—the French dish, Ed could only think, cold soup? 
76 
Ed reclined further. Superb Crosswords lay beside him, and it was open to the 
puzzle, "Something Bothering You?" Ed tried to recline more, but the chair was al­
ready as flat as it would go. His hand again reached down to stroke the soft head of 
his absent dog. 
"Ed!" Ann's voice trilled from the kitchen. "I'm going for potatoes. Do you need 
anything?" 
He resisted asking for his rum, and said no. A few seconds later the door 
slammed. 
Soon Ed's lower back tingled from its sloped position, and his arms chated on 
the mealy upholstery. I le rose and stumped around the house. 
Several more of Ann's paintings lined the downstairs hallway, variously splatter 
and landscapes, and small bookshelves filled intermittent niches. Shelves in the guest 
room and office supported more books, statuettes, empty bottles of Ed's imported 
rum. He felt surprise at each full shelf. 
With the first capsule, too, Ed hadn't discovered anything to be gone. He had 
asked Ann for days about the box's contents, but she never budged, not even when he 
hid her makeup and jewelry. Ed had considered unearthing the box himself, just to 
see, but it hadn't seemed worth the effort, or the argument that would follow. It would 
have been better for one of his dogs to dig it up. Now the task fell to him. He thought 
he understood the fulfillment Ann received from her New Age spirituality, but could 
she expect him to hold the same appreciation? He appreciated frankness too much to 
hide behind philosophy. His pique grew as he failed to think of one secret he held 
77 
from Ann, and rebellion surged inside of him. He would look in the time capsule. 
Rain drove down, but Ed decided to brave the deluge. He collected his boots 
and umbrella and walked outside. Ed glanced at Reagan on the way for confidence, 
and he imagined that the dog urged him on with a wink. 
Ed strode toward the lawn's back comer, ready to discover whatever LPs and 
Louis L'Amour books warranted such extensive secrecy. The rain pounded his um­
brella for a few moments, then suddenly halted when he reached the burial spot. The 
two shovels still rested against the fence, and Ed took one; pain surged through his 
hands when he pushed the shovel tip into the soil. It was still soft, though heavy with 
water. The wet ground made a sucking noise as he lifted the top level of soil. 
"Sounds something like Ann." 
Half of an earthworm lay at the bottom of the divot he had just made. Ed re­
membered reading that they could grow back body parts, so he lifted it up with his 
shovel and set it aside. He glanced toward the house occasionally, but kept working 
until he heard the shovel crack against hard plastic. 
Ed knelt and brushed the remaining soil from the top to reveal the near cheval-
de-frise of duct tape that Ann had wrapped around the box. He felt along the lumpy 
strips with their ridges and bubbles, then along the smooth edges of the plastic. It was 
cool and moist from the earth, and he let his hand linger, enjoying the wetness. But 
his legs were beginning to complain, so he dug into his pocket for his folding knife. 
He carved open the capsule with the care he had once used tor whittling. 
Finally the last strip snapped, and the box popped open. Pain shot through his 
78 
left leg, and he shifted his weight to his right, but he did not rise. He kept his eyes on 
the dark interior of the box. 
He planted his free hand to ease the pressure on his legs, and it sank into the 
mud. His fingers closed around something slimy. Half of a worm. He flicked it away 
then plunged his other hand into the box. Ed shut his eyes tight as his fingers pushed 
aside crinkled paper and packing peanuts, then touched something soft, dry, and rigid. 
Shock swept through his body, and it seemed to lock. There he stayed, on his knees, 
as moisture seeped through his jeans and up and down his legs. In the distance, a door 
opened, shut, but he remained rooted. One hand drove deeper in the mud as the other 
clenched fur. 
Footsteps approached, but he didn't turn. 
"Ed—" Ann breathed the word. 
He felt his mouth open and close, like the feeder fish he used to see at the mall. 
He swallowed. "What about the other box?" 
Ann didn't respond. 
"It wasn't the cougars, was it?" 
"Of course it was," she mumbled. "You don't think—" 
He raised a mud-caked hand from the ground to silence her. 
"You mustn't believe that I—" She stopped as Ed turned to look at her. 
Tears ran from each eye. He felt as if his face were cracking. 
"This is Reagan." 
Ann tried a placating smile, but it faltered. "Yes, but—" 
79 
"This is Reagan!" 
"There were cougars, you wouldn't have wanted to see it! You already feel so 
much pain—" 
Ed shook his head; his whole body trembled. "Jesus, Ann," he said, finally pull­
ing his arm out of the box. "Greyhounds never have been known for their digging." 
Finding his footing on the muddy ground, he managed to right himself without 
Ann's assistance and made for the house. She called to him, but he didn't stop. Rain 
tapped on his shoulders, increasing with each splashing footfall. He stepped inside 
and locked the door. A half-full glass of Centenario waited for him by his chair, but he 
ignored it. He selected the key for the coupe from the basket on the kitchen counter 
and stepped out the front door into the rain. 
80 
A Christmas Toy 
Snow weighed down the trees' boughs, covered every street sign, and veiled the 
sky. The road ahead remained stubbornly gray. Mark's fiancee, Camille, had said that 
her parents' vacation home in Sunriver, Oregon was an ideal place to celebrate 
Christmas; but five minutes past the wooden welcome sign, Mark already harbored 
doubts, l ie could manage the snow, but every few hundred yards he came upon an­
other roundabout, and Camille had misordered the sequence in her directions. After 
two wrong turns and a near foray onto a bike path, Camille owed him—a massage, 
with oils. Maybe that would rekindle things. 
Mark was thirty-five and the new day manager of Giampietro's, a three-story 
Victorian house on the Oregon coast remodeled into an Italian restaurant. He ran up 
and down its spiral staircases less now that he didn t serve, but the back of his stiff 
white collar was still yellowed by the end ot each shift. Mark thought he fit the part 
of manager well: tall, but not intimidating, a thin build, and calming green eyes. Fea­
tures that helped make things right with customers when something went wrong. And 
something did, every day. His manager's utility belt, which he wore at all times, held 
a sleeve of gift cards, a roll of small bills for change, and a detergent pen. 
The week after Mark's promotion, they had gone home-shopping, and found the 
perfect beach house in Yachats. There, he and Camille—the four-star-restaurant man­
ager and the crafter of toys—would settle and marry and make love and not leave un-
81 
til the ocean rose and carried them away. 
But he first had to navigate the pretzel of slushy roads that led to the Rousseaus' 
house. 
Ahead, a blue figure emerged from the whiteout. Mark stopped alongside. 
"Excuse me! Do you know how I can find Mountain View Lane?" 
The walker turned, and through the falling flakes he saw a middle-aged woman 
whose face bulged from the fur lining of her hood. The fat in her cheeks surely 
warmed her as much as the fur. A delicate pair of eyeglass frames rested on her short, 
curving nose; her eyes were vague and milky behind the lenses, which fogged in the 
moist air. 
"Sure! Those are my stomping grounds!" She smiled; she wore braces on her 
bottom row of teeth. "I'm Yvonne Blakely." She extended her hand, and Mark, after a 
second, took it with both of his. He gave her his managerial smile. 
"Pleasure. I'm Mark Whinsome. So how about those directions? I'm not quite so 
bundled." He had put on black slacks that morning to meet the senior manager, and he 
might as well have been naked against the frigid gusts that penetrated the car. 
She jutted out her chin, then carefully listed the roundabouts and right-turns that 
would lead to Mountain View. Mark stared at the bridge of her nose as she spoke, as 
he used to do while taking people's orders. 
"I think I can manage that. Thanks." 
"See you around!" Yvonne crunched away through the snow. 
The Blakely house would be a picture of Christmas extravagance, Mark was 
82 
sure, if the exclamation points in Yvonne's voice were any indication. Long strands of 
white icicle lights would trail from every rail and all of the eaves, a wreath would 
hang on the front door—maybe, too, on the grill of her car—and mounds of gift 
boxes would hide the tree. Perhaps Mountain View was long, and they wouldn't see 
each other around. His eyes already hurt from the glow of the lights. Mark had been 
relieved to hear that Camille's family celebrated a simple, noncommercial Christmas. 
He'd had no idea what to get Camille, or what she deserved, given her recent distance. 
The power mechanism resisted as Mark rolled up the window, and the glass 
stopped two inches from the top. The Volvo was Camille s car, a decade old, and 
something nonessential broke every tew months. He drove it now because Camille 
and her parents were coming north from her toymaker convention a few hours away, 
and he wanted them to have the Suburban in case they found trouble on the roads. 
She'd asked Mark to go with them—she was presenting her company's new toy, after 
months of secrecy—but he'd had to stay tor one last shift. 
Three roundabouts later Mark came upon Mountain View Lane, and he popped 
his gloved hands together after making the final, correct turn. He felt no less satisiac-
tion than the previous summer when he and Camille had visited her cousins in Paris. 
Mark had fought off swarms of compact cars and Camille's erroneous passenger-seat 
driving to successfully navigate the Arc de Triomphe. 
The Rousseaus' vacation home was a light brown two-story structure. It had a 
wraparound porch, and two wooden rocking chairs by the front door, chained together 
so they would remain safe during the months Camille's parents were gone. It was an 
unnecessary security measure; the chairs had weathered to a deep, fungal green. 
Two doors down, an SUV sat in front of a khaki, one-story ranch house, a series 
ot footprints connecting them. The truck had a wreath on the front, and Mark knew it 
belonged to Yvonne. But the house had no Christmas lights, nor did any of the cul-de-
sac's other half-dozen houses. These appeared empty. Perhaps the lack of decoration 
had to do with what Cami lie had said about Sunriver's strict building code, which 
seemed to forbid any paint color that didn't naturally occur in the earth's soil. Dim, 
deserted, and snowed under, Mountain View Lane resembled a Northwestern ghost 
town. 
Inside the Rousseaus', Mark felt the stagnant air from last Christmas, infused 
with the scent of stale candles. He would have to wait for the others amid this chilly 
potpourri of caramel apple and cinnamon. It would be several hours. Mark took two 
deep breaths and cheered himself by thinking back on Camille's final act of persua­
sion, the one that brought him here to the snow: her warm, whispering appeal an inch 
from his ear. You be fine, she hwadil sl aid. make sure of it. Whatever her meaning, 
he, long-starved, had heard sex; if she gave truth to this, he would have his happy 
Christmas. 
Mark was into his third hour reading The Hobbit by the tire when he heard 
Camille and her parents arrive. The book had been his Christmas tradition since mid­
dle school, when he first followed Bilbo Baggins to the Lonely Mountain. Now he 
was sorry to leave the hobbit behind in Mirkwood. Mark finished the paragraph he 
84 
was on before rising to greet everyone in the entryway down the hall. 
Camille entered tightly wrapped in her favorite charcoal peacoat. A burgundy 
scarf wound about her neck. The cold had flushed her cheeks, concealing her usual 
orange freckles. Camille had done up her long amber-streaked brown hair, apparently 
for the convention. Her shoulders seemed bare without her curls, which now coiled 
upon the peak of her head like a thin desert snake. Mark's blood coursed through him 
with greater vigor, and close by his heart came a twinge. Perhaps tonight. She was 
always gorgeous—every night he filled his eyes with Camille in the last seconds be­
fore sleep, so that he might have beautiful dreams—but their last lovemaking had 
been the night they had found their beach house. 
Camille slipped her feet from her boots and gave Mark a wet, chilling hug. Her 
peacoat soaked through his sweater, but her jasmine scent kept him close. 
"Well, honey, looks like you made it okay." Mark kissed her and removed her 
coat. He looked for a coat rack but found none, and instead draped it over his fore­
arm. 
"Yes, nothing to report. Odd, we're nearly alone this year. The Blakelys are the 
only other ones who have come for the holidays. Mom and Dad went over to say hi." 
Camille gestured toward the Yvonne's house and wreathed SUV, where the woman 
surely distributed large slices of walnut fruitcake to Philippe and Caroline. 
"By the way, how did my Volvo hold up?" Camille's lips parted just enough to 
reveal a thin strip of white teeth. 
Mark knew she wanted to hear how the Volvo had bested him. She was proud 
85 
of its faults, and of her singular ability to manage them. But he wouldn't give her the 
satisfaction, and he realized that the passenger seat was still collecting snow from the 
open window. "It held up wonderfully. But you owe me a massage. Your directions 
were awful." He stretched the last syllable and ended it softly as he thought about 
Camille's warm hands tracing and kneading the muscles of his shoulders, back, and 
thighs. 
The door swung open and sent a cold gust across Mark's face. Philippe and 
Caroline entered with their duffle bags. 
"Mark!" Philippe said. A wide smile covered his portly face. "So good of you to 
come!" 
"Yes," said Caroline. "This might just become your new holiday tradition!" 
"Grand," Mark said. "Just grand." His voice came out as hollow as he felt. Even 
in their cheer—or maybe because of it, thick and dripping, like Yvonne Blake-
ly's—they sapped his romantic energies. 
This was only the third time Mark had seen Camille's parents. They traveled 
continuously in retirement. Each of their families had emigrated from Prance after 
World War II, and they were normal Americans with respect to manners, names, and, 
in Philippe's case, obesity. But something was off. At least Camille seemed normal, 
and had remained thin into her thirties like her mother. Mark didn't think he had to 
fear waking up one morning to an overweight wife, who had no place in his beach 
house vision. How could such a wife inspire beautiful dreams? 
Mark hugged Caroline and kissed her on both cheeks. She was a few inches 
86 
shorter than Caniille, closer to five feet. Like her daughter, she wore a peacoat, the 
same deep black as her hair, and draped her body with all kinds of jewelry. An espe­
cially fine diamond-studded cross hung around her neck. From what he'd seen, Mark 
didn't think the couple was actually religious—Camille surely wasn't—but they pre­
tended with great energy. When they had come for a weekend over the summer to 
meet him and see his and Camille's apartment, Philippe had insisted on taking every­
one to church. He had stopped at the first one they came to, which happened to be 
Episcopal, and kept his eyes shut tight throughout the sermon. Mark had nearly been 
convinced, until he caught Philippe peeking every few minutes. Maybe he was trying 
to show off the piety of the French, or maybe he thought that's what American fami­
lies were supposed to do together, but he looked as relieved as Mark was when they 
left. 
Mark hesitated as he leaned toward Philippe, but the squat man looked expec­
tant, so Mark gave him two kisses alongside his cheeks. 
A few hours later, Mark leaned against the hard plastic wall of the Sunriver 
mall's outdoor skating rink. Blue sky poked at the horizon, but scattered flakes still 
fell, some fluttering toward Mark under the covering. Camille had decided on a whim 
they should go ice skating, just as Mark had settled in to read a few more pages be­
fore dinner. It was so pretty outside, she had said as she tugged on his sleeve—why 
couldn't they leave the house? This when four inches of snow had accumulated on the 
window's ledge. He had ignored her until she lay down beside him on the bed and 
87 
slowly, gently traced her fingers up and down his thigh. That was better—they could 
bond just as well lying in bed. He set his book down, expecting his massage, and 
closed his eyes. A moment longer her hands roamed across his chest, then her weight 
rose from the bed, and nothing. "Come on," she'd said as he opened his eyes, and with 
a sidelong glance at his book, a pitched tent on the bedside table, he went. 
The floppy canvas uppers and chipped blades of Mark's skates inspired in him 
little confidence, so he watched Camille. She wound through the sparse crowd of 
other couples with easy, nimble turns. A couple in their early twenties skated by Mark 
to the exit. 
"Good ice out there!" the man said. 
"Don't listen to him," the woman said softly, leaning toward Mark. "It's too 
chunky." 
"I'll await the Zamboni, then." 
She raised an eyebrow, then laughed, and continued to laugh as she and the man 
clomped away. 
Camille came near every so often, but Mark could only wave and shout a few 
words before she was once more out of range. He soon became bored and ordered a 
beer at the concession stand. 
"Good ice out there?" asked the boy behind the counter, a blond kid of about 
eighteen. A patchy beard grew along his jawline. 
"Yeah," Mark said. He sipped his hefeweizen. "A bit chunky, though." 
"You here for the holidays?" 
88 
"Isn't everyone?" 
Camille called from the rink, and Mark carried his beer over. 
"Mark! You barely came onto the ice!" She leaned her elbows against the rail­
ing and perched her head on her fists. 
"1 stood there and watched you for at least ten minutes. You were the epitome ot 
grace." 
Camille smiled, and in that moment the diverse colors of her face shone. Her 
orange freckles were in full bloom on her cheeks, the cold had given her lips a hint of 
purple, and her tawny eyes glinted even under the stark glow of the fluorescent light 
above. Mark decided he could take at least one lap around the ice with her before they 
left. 
Later, after dinner, Mark changed into his bathrobe and a thinning pair of felt 
slippers he found in his closet, then joined the others around the fire. Camille lay on 
the couch and Philippe and Caroline sat in armchairs opposite. A series of tall, narrow 
windows made up the wall behind them, and each seemed alight as it reflected the 
burning wood in the hearth. Mark was pleased to see everyone else finally reading, 
but just as he moved Camille's legs to sit down, Philippe spoke. 
"Mark, come on." He rose from his chair. "Let's get some more wood." 
The pile of wood by the hearth still measured at least two feet high. "Right 
now?" 
"You used too much this afternoon, and we might need more tor the morning. 
89 
It's better to go now." 
Camille kept her nose in her book and offered no support, so Mark reluctantly 
followed Philippe from the room. Philippe led him through the hall and down a nar­
row set of stairs to the basement. 
It was a square room as large as the ground level, and a workshop covered the 
middle of the concrete floor. Along the walls were wooden partitions that divided 
each side into a series of alcoves. Some of these niches contained obscure tools that 
Mark didn't recognize, and one held tremendous stacks of firewood, enough to keep 
the house crackling for years. Philippe had surely been joking about Mark burning 
too much wood. 
"Load me up." Philippe held out his torearms for Mark to fill. They were short, 
but strong and wide. After piling on the sixth piece, Mark suggested he could get the 
rest, but Philippe only glared at him. "I said load me up." 
Mark added every piece he could, trying to cover Philippe's face, ruddy and 
probing. After the tenth, Philippe finally left the alcove. Mark managed to fill his own 
arms with eight pieces, and returned to the stairs hoping to find Philippe halfway up, 
collapsed under his load. Mark would shake his head at the pudgy man—he'd told 
him so—then offer him a hand. But Philippe called to Mark from the corner. 
Phillipe loaded his wood into a lift that seemed to rise to the hearth, much like 
the old dumbwaiter they still used at Giampietro's. 
"Did you make this?" Mark asked. 
"Yes, when I built the house. It's my favorite feature. 
90 
For a moment Mark looked in wonder at this man whose collared denim shirt 
seemed a tent dress. Then he smiled as he realized Philippe was joking again. "You 
built this house? I thought you were an insurance salesman." 
"1 was. But I could also build a house. All I needed were the tools you see 
around you. Would you know what to do with those tools?" Philippe placed Mark's 
firewood into the lift piece by piece, undoubtedly counting them. 
Mark took a deep breath and imagined how Philippe would look crammed into 
the lift, spilling out its edges. "No, I can't say 1 would." 
Philippe finished loading and looked at Mark with squinting brown eyes. "You 
want to marry my daughter ? You learn to use tools, and then we can talk like men. 
Philippe pressed a button to send the lift to the hearth and went upstairs, flip­
ping off the light as he left. The man had a duty to his daughter, but Mark hoped 
Philippe's show wouldn't last long. He wasn't sure how hard he was willing to fight 
for Camille's hand. He had met her when he served her and a girlfriend one night at 
Giampietro's, and he could always meet another to share his beach house with. 
Mark fumbled for the lift's down button and returned upstairs. 
The Rousseaus had gone to sleep early, after Philippe delegated Mark to tend 
the fire. He sat on the couch, eyes closed, as Camille lay across his lap. 
"Hey." Camille looked up from her magazine. "Do you want to see my toy?" 
Mark's eyelids were heavy, he was warm inside his plush robe, and he wanted 
only to sit. "Right now? It's late, and it's already been such a long day. 
91 
"Come on." Camille poked him in the side, and Mark flinched, but didn't move. 
"I've been working on it for months. And you didn't come to the convention." 
"I couldn't have." But Mark had been curious these many months. "Where is 
it?" 
"In the car." 
"No way." 
"I'm getting the keys. I'll go without you." She rose, and a few seconds later 
Mark heard the front door open. Soon a draft brushed against Mark's bare calves, and 
it lingered after Camille returned inside and shut the door. 
"Okay," Camille called from the kitchen. "It's in here." 
Mark heaved himself to his teet and went to the kitchen. Camille stepped aside 
to reveal the toy on the table. 
It was Heidi, a blonde, white-skinned doll in a sparkly pink box. It wore a red 
skirt and white apron and blouse, and came packaged with an assortment of cooking 
implements and utensils. The toy didn't surprise him, given the company's history 
with Barbie. But it was disappointing. Camille's development process had spanned 
six months and included focus groups, yet the toy looked like any other piece of 
painted plastic on store shelves. 
"So." Camille leaned against the kitchen doorframe, her eyebrows raised. "Now 
you've seen Heidi. Do you like her? 
Camille had put much into this toy; Mark had seen, and barely resisted explor­
ing. the thick files in her home office. He, too, had sacrificed for Heidi; he had often 
92 
fallen asleep alone while Camille retooled and refined her designs. But when he no­
ticed the tiny wooden spoon that Heidi grasped in her little fingers, he began to laugh. 
Camille crossed her arms, and they disappeared in the folds of her navy bath­
robe. "Huh. Just a silly waste of my time, then, is she?" 
"Camille, I didn't say that." He had stopped laughing, but tried in vain to re­
move his smile. Heidi was very silly. But wasn't she supposed to be? He sat at the ta­
ble. "Okay, let's be serious, then. What's the angle?" 
Camille held her head aslant. "There have been some successful cooking video 
games to come along recently, and we wanted to tap that into market. You should ap­
preciate the concept. You work at a restaurant." 
"1 manage a restaurant, yes." Mark felt that he had somehow been lured into a 
trap, but he wasn't yet sure what kind, or how he might escape it. 
Camille threw her head back. Her hair, now loose, splayed against the door­
frame and seemed to hang for a moment before settling on her shoulders. Is there a 
difference?" 
"Of course there is! And how can you attack me, when you make playthings? 
He leaned his head back into the web of his clasped hands. "Why are we even talking 
about this?" 
Camille stared at her fingernails. She picked at the corner of one. She looked up 
at him with eyes suddenly fighting tears. "You don't appreciate what 1 do." 
If she had cried, Mark would have risen to hold her; deprived of this imperative, 
he merely sat, confused. "Camille, I'm sure kids will love Heidi-" 
93 
"I'm not just talking about Heidi." Her tears streamed. "I mean me. You never 
come to me, take me up, make love to me, never want to do things with me. And 
when I come to you, you lie silently, waiting for it to be over. Then I make Heidi. 
Something beautiful you will like. And you laugh." 
"Camille." She spoke nonsense now—he had only found her toy funny, and 
now she spoke this nonsense—and he struggled to wade through her words. So—so! 
she had been ready and willing, only waiting. Waiting for him to open his eyes and 
return her caresses, so she might give herself up to him. 
Mark rose now to hold her tight, to offer his warmth and absorb her shivering 
fears. Their every layer of clothing was a hindrance as he tried to feel each point of 
contact along his body. Her head rested against his shoulder, nudging into his neck, 
and Mark held tighter still. Her toes pressed the ends of his slippers, her knees 
knocked against his shins, her waist fused with his own as she nestled deeper into him 
still. Flakes golden in the kitchen light swirled round and built on the window sill be­
side them. Six inches now, or seven, and if it snowed through the night—if only they 
' T ' i 
could make it through—they might awake to walls of white around the house. Then > 
they would remain in bed, impervious to all, teel each other, and make love. They 
would celebrate Christmas in bed, and Boxing Day, then return to the salty winds ot 
the coast, claim their beach house, and make love and raise their children to be godd 
in love, too. 
Camille raised her eyes to meet his, and he thought, he hoped he saw snow ' 
- • . 
building in them. * ''fb 
94 
Progression 
A damp wind blew across the veranda, and Toru pulled his thin arms tight 
around his chest. The ragged end of his last cigarette drooped from his mouth, its 
glow dull against the final reds and yellows on the Oregon ash trees lining the street 
two floors below. I le kicked the butts scattered at his feet, puffed at his Marlboro one 
more time, then flicked it over the railing. The grass was so wet he could have sent 
over a burning torch without risking anything more than a smolder. 
Toru opened the sliding glass door and sat on the kitchen floor. He did have a 
chair and a mattress in his one-bedroom campus apartment, but both still smelled like 
Momoko. 1 Icr lilac scent—it did seem to be hers; Toru had never seen her using per­
fume—clung to everything. Just under a week ago, he had taken both pairs of jeans, 
his t-shirts, and all three sweatshirts to be laundered. Her scent disappeared, but now 
his clothes didn't seem to belong. Last night he had slept on the carpet among empty 
bottles of Corona, but he woke from a dream at sunrise and remembered the night 
they'd had sex on the floor. So now Toru sat on the cold, flaking tile of the kitchen. 
Tom's empty stomach turned over, and he rubbed together his right index and 
middle fingers. He could buy a pack of cigarettes tomorrow if his father's wire came 
through. It might, or, if his father had sought a prostitute that night, it might not. Two 
months into Toru's second year at Oregon State, he had learned to expect little. He, 
his brother—now starting college in California-and the prostitutes competed for the 
95 
same funds. So, too, did his mother, whenever her lawyers recrunched the numbers 
and found that she really hadn't received her fair share during the divorce. 
Or maybe Toru would go grocery shopping when the money arrived. He could 
roam Safeway's aisles instead of the Circle K's. But his rumbling stomach demanded 
food now. On the counter, old noodles wound crusted about the bottoms of three neon 
bowls, and a half-roll of sushi lay on a plate alongside. In the cupboards, he had rice. 
Lots office, in the one box that never emptied. 
But Toru stayed on the floor flicking his bony fingers together, listening to the 
friction. 
On Wednesday, a week and a day before, three raps from Toru's owl knocker 
had announced Momoko's arrival. He finished brushing his teeth, then smoothed his 
t-shirt and went to the door. She knocked once more just before he opened it. 
Momoko wore a knee-length black dress and a white cardigan with large 
wooden buttons. Her black hair was tucked behind her ears and tell to her shoulders. 
She smiled without showing her teeth. 
"Hey. Come in." Toru swung his left arm wide. She stepped in and hugged him, 
and he sniffed her neck. But he had just applied cologne and couldn't locate her scent 
before she pulled away. 
Momoko sat in the faded green armchair in the front room's corner and was si­
lent for a moment- Her eyes scanned the shelves that lined two walls. Their contents 
had changed little since her visit two days before: several empty cigarette cartons, 
96 
staggered stacks of CD and DVD cases, most containing pirated discs, and an eight-
track player that Toru had never used. He had one tape, Jethro Tull's Aqualung, which 
had come with it at the secondhand store. 
"Where are we eating tonight?" Momoko spoke with only a slight accent. This 
was her first term here, but she had studied in Australia for a year during high school. 
Toru leaned against the wall. "The Szechuan House. John recommended it. 
Toru and John had worked as co-group leaders during international student orienta­
tion. 1 le had met Momoko at the same time. She had stood out in her black patent 
leather boots, midnight blue jeans, and the white sweater she wore now, but she had 
been the quiet girl in their group. Toru had assumed she spoke little English. Then, 
after the two-day program, she had thanked him and offered to shout him a pot. 
Toru accepted without question, and he was relieved when she then asked which bar 
was his favorite. 
"Haven't we been there already?" Momoko curled a lock of hair around her in­
dex and middle fingers, then released it. 
"It just opened. Downtown somewhere." Toru went into the kitchen adjacent 
and opened the refrigerator. "Do you want a beer first? 
From the other room, the armchair's springs groaned as Momoko reclined. "It's 
only six o'clock. You shouldn't have one either. We're about to eat." 
Toru returned with a Corona and popped its top on his belt buckle, as he had so 
often seen his father do with Sapporo bottles. Toru had learned the trick recently as he 
played Led Zeppelin on his acoustie. "It's dark outside," he said. "That's enough for 
97 
me." 
"Drink it fast, then. I want to go." Her fingers returned to her hair, twirling and 
letting go. Her bangs had come loose from behind her ear and now slanted across the 
left side of her face. From three or four meters, Toru could not distinguish the color ot 
her hair from her darkly brown eyes. She scratched her slim nose with a cream-
colored nail. 
Toru raised his bottle, but found it empty. "Okay. We can go." 
The Szechuan House was a ten-minute walk from Toru's apartment. He and 
Momoko walked arm-in-arm, and he stayed close to feel her body's warmth. He 
hadn't brought a sweatshirt with him. The restaurant would be the twentieth they had 
tried during their nine weeks together. Momoko had said she didnt mind eating at 
their apartments, but he preferred to treat her, and he couldn't host her at his place. He 
had no table. 
A tiny bell chimed as they entered, and the aromas of garlic, peppers, and roast­
ing poultry greeted them. The restaurant shared the bottom floor of a downtown of­
fice building, but set itself apart with its decor: thick red curtains hung across the 
wide front windows, and low lamplight illuminated the tables. Toru especially liked 
the multicolored, gold-threaded tapestries hanging along each wall. One showed a red 
dragon snaking unceasingly in the shape of infinity. The hostess led them to a table in 
the darkest corner and left two menus on the table. Toru pulled out Momoko's chair, 
then sat across from her. Her pale skin had darkened in the dim light, and the edges of 
her profile were shadowy. Her long, thin neck remained prominent, framed by her 
98 
falling hair. Momoko was the prettiest girl he had seen in the United States—though 
she was from a neighboring borough in Tokyo back home—and he was grateful he 
had met her during her first week here. She smiled; probably her earlier curtness was 
due to her hunger. 
"Pick anything you want," Toru said. "I just received a wire from my dad." 
"Toru, 1 can pay—" 
I le silenced her with a stern look. Toru always set aside enough to take her out; 
he would always have enough for her. That much his dad had taught him. 
Momoko arched her eyebrows, a familiar look, but one that now held some 
other meaning, too. Something like resignation. She picked up her menu. 
l heir waitress came with water glasses and asked for drink orders. She had 
blonde hair cut in a bob around her slender face. Her pale blue eyes shone even in the 
low light. Momoko shook her head, and Toru told the waitress—Kylie, according to 
her name tag—that they were fine. 
Toru noted the tea-smoked duck on the menu and imagined for a moment its 
fennel and peppercorns on his tongue. But it cost fifteen dollars, and his money had to 
last through the week. He settled on the cucumber salad. 
Kylie emerged from the kitchen with a steaming tray. She strode toward the 
corner and stopped at the table before theirs. Two middle-aged men in suits watched 
as she offloaded their plates of tea-smoked duck. Toru smelled the fennel and recon­
sidered. He could buy Winston cigarettes instead of Marlboros, or Pabst instead of 
Corona. One of the men sliced into his whole bird, took a bite, and smiled his ap-
99 
proval to Kylie. As she turned to Torn and Momoko's table and pulled out her note­
pad. he decided on the duck. 
"Have y'all decided?" 
Momoko's menu lay folded in front of her, and her eyes were sweeping the 
wall's tapestries. 
"Yes. 1 think so," Toru said. "Momoko?" 
She opened her menu and scanned the entree list with her index finger. " The 
tea-smoked duck, please." 
Kylie finished writing, then looked at him. 
"Just— the cucumber salad," he said. 
She thanked them and went away. 
Momoko's gaze had returned to the walls, and her fingers were back in her hair. 
Toru wondered if she had noticed the duck on the table beside them; she had probably 
chosen it at random. But she would enjoy it, and might offer him some. 
"How are your classes going?" Toru asked. 
Momoko met his eyes. "Most are going well. My economics professor is a 
bludger, though." 
Toru raised his eyebrows. 
"He's lazy. We have been discussing social welfare programs, and he said that 
he spent most of last year on unemployment." 
Toru sat stra.ghter in his chair. "My father has been on unemployment." 
"Toru, don't be offended. This man-" She scratched at a small, circular stain 
100 
on the white tablecloth. "He lost his job at some other school, then sat at home col­
lecting government money. He did nothing until Oregon State gave him a position." 
"You don't know. Maybe he was looking for jobs." 
Momoko leaned across the table on her elbows. "No—he admitted this. He's a 
bludger." 
"My father—" Toru's hands encircled his water glass. The tablecloth was wet 
from its condensation, and he realized that he was sweating, too. He had left Tokyo 
three weeks before school started. His father had been working then as an office 
clcrk—for men like those at the next table, who wore suits and ate whole roast 
duck—but he had lost such a job before. He could be on unemployment now. 
Kylie appeared from the kitchen, and neither of them said anything further. 
Steam appeared to issue from every plate except Toru's. Maybe his father had some­
one like Kylie at home. She would have the bob—black, not blonde and the same 
slender face. She would arrive with a similar button-up white blouse, and his father 
would see that it came off quickly. Kylie unloaded a few plates before coming to their 
table. Toru watched Momoko eat her duck without touching his own food, as hungry 
as he was, and she didn't offer him any. When she finished, they rose and left. Toru 
left his cucumber salad on the table. 
At eight o'clock they reached Toru's apartment. He held a carton of cigarettes 
under one arm as he led Momoko to his green recliner. He set the carton alongside the 
chair, then struck a match and lit several tall candles atop the shelves. He wen. to the 
kitchen to douse it and throw i, away. Several bowls sat on the counter, empty, and 
101 
1 oru wished he had his salad. Inside the refrigerator he found only condiments. 
" foru," Momoko called with a whimper. "We just got back from dinner." 
He took one last look and left the kitchen. Momoko lay back in the chair, her 
hair arrayed against the upholstery like rays of black sunlight. Her eyes glimmered 
vaguely in the candlelight, and they seemed vacant, as if she watched him from far 
away, foru bent to kiss her, feeling with his hands for the buttons of her white blouse. 
I ler hand pushed against his, and he squeezed it lightly, then removed her shirt. He 
lowered himself and rotated her on top. His fingers itched to hold a cigarette, and 
moved hungrily along Momoko's chest, back, and neck, into her hair. For minutes 
they remained there, kissing, her head in his hands, until she pulled away, stood, and 
slipped off her pants. Toru's fingers reached for the cigarette carton beside the chair 
and fiddled with the packaging as Momoko lay atop him again. While he worked at 
the plastic wrapping, she undid his belt and mounted him. Flickering candle flames 
reflected in her eyes, which glistened and seemed about to drip; he let the carton fall. 
The touch of her hands fulfilled a deeper urge. 
Afterward, Momoko nestled herself beside him, and soon she was asleep, loru 
would not be able to sleep for hours, but he lay quiet and content as every part ot 
Momoko's body radiated warmth. They could remain together until eleven in the 
morning, when he would wake and find her looking at him as he now looked at her. 
He would kiss the tip of her nose, then lead her to the shower. After, in the gray No­
vember light filtering into Toru's room, they would turn away from each other to 
dress Momoko would select fresh clothes from her stack in the closet and walk to 
102 
campus. 
Toru's tongue felt thick and dry, and he shifted Momoko off him and retrieved a 
beer. I le set its cap against the counter's edge and struck it with the base of his palm, 
and the bottle popped open. Another trick he had learned from his father. 
Toru shivered. He was waiting for the temperature to drop to the thirties before 
turning on the heat. 1 le finished his beer and started another. Momoko still slept in the 
chair, and she looked too peaceful to move, so he went to his room and wrapped him­
self in blankets. Moonlight entered through the bedroom's single oblong window, but 
the moon was already too high to see. Soon it would crest the horizon in Tokyo. 
Maybe his father would see it, if he weren't too occupied. Would he think about 
where it had come from? How his sons were finding their way, across the Pacific? 
Toru heard the chair squeak, then the so of the footrest clicking into 
place. It was one a.m. He must have dozed off. He tracked Momoko's silhouette as 
she entered and lay beside him. Her eyes struggled to stay open. She reached for his 
hand. 
"I'm cold. Why did you leave me?" 
He interlocked his fingers with hers, long, smooth, and cool. "I didn't want to 
wake you." He lifted his beer from the nightstand and sipped it. 
Momoko sat up. " Toru." 
Her expression was hidden in the dark. He tried to lay her back down. 
She pulled away. "How many have you had? 
He replaced the beer on the nightstand. Only one. 
103 
"That is the first?" 
"This is the second." 
"I'm going to be sorry—" She turned to the wall and lay down. 
Toru propped himself on his elbow. "What are you talking about?" 
But Momoko's breathing slowed, and soon she was asleep again, foru stroked 
her cheek, and it came back wet. Had she been crying? He would ask in the morning. 
foru next awoke mid-morning, close to falling off the bed. He reached behind, 
but felt only a warm depression where Momoko had been. He picked up his halt-full 
beer from the night before and called her name. She emerged from the bathroom, but­
toning her pale yellow blouse. Her face was dimpled, although she wasn't smiling. 
"Where are you going?" he asked. 
"To the library. To study." She brushed her bangs from her eyes. "You could 
come with me." 
He shielded his tired eyes from the morning light. "Come back to bed. 
"Toru all you do is lie in bed." Her hand reached halfway to her hair, then 
dropped. "You drink and smoke darts 
"What?" 
"Cigarettes! You smoke cigarettes and drink and—" She leaned against the 
doorframe, took a deep breath, then righted herself. "It's nine o'eloek now. I'm going 
to Cornerstone for breakfast, I will wait there an hour, and if you don't come, I will go 
to the library." She closed her eyes for five seconds, then reopened them, dry. "And 
we—this—will be over." 
104 
Amid the gray of the morning, the darks of her hair and eyes, and the lights of 
her skin and clothes were striking. Had she cause to smile, her white teeth, too, would 
have shined. She surely deserved a good man, one who would take care of her; had 
not Toru been that man? "1 love you," he said. 
"Then meet me at the cafe." She disappeared from the doorway, and a few sec­
onds later the owl knocker clacked as she left. 
Toru threw his pillow into the hall and leaned against the headboard. The last 
time he had cried was two years ago when his parents separated. They had argued tor 
years, and his father had already begun seeing prostitutes; but when his mother finally 
packed up and left, both father and son cried. Now Toru cried again. 
After a time, he calmed enough to notice a bird singing outside his window. He 
grabbed a pack of cigarettes and an issue of Rolling Stone and went outside. Dark 
gray clouds blew across the sky, but none brought rain. Toru emptied the cigarettes 
along the chipped white railing and smoked each in succession. He did love her. If 
she wanted, he wouldn't smoke and drink so much. But it was pointless now. His fa­
ther had given up his vices for months after his mother left, and she hadn't come back. 
Toru finished his last cigarette and went inside. It was 10:15. 
Tom's cell phone vibrated against his thigh. He pulled it from his tight pocket: 
JohnK Calling. John had texted him twice earlier in the day— Wats up? hit me back 
and U busy? lets hang. Toru let the call ring through to voicemail. 
He rose and paced. He kicked into a tighter pile the empty beer cases in the 
105 
corner of the entry way, then went to his bedroom. His phone beeped, but Toru sat on 
his bed and began to strum his acoustic guitar. He repeated the opening chord pro­
gression to "Stairway to Heaven" six times, then switched to "Kashmir." 
The door knocker pounded. Toru considered sitting in quiet until John left, but 
he wanted to talk to somebody. He'd skipped school the last three days, after attend­
ing his first Monday class. 
1 le opened the front door, shook hands with John, and led him inside. He ges­
tured to the recliner. 
John sat and crossed his legs at the knee. His argyle socks became visible undei 
his khakis. 1 le had short, straight blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a jutting chin. He 
appeared to be a natural fraternity man, but had never joined one. 
"1 lave you tried that eight-track yet?" John smiled and tousled his hair. It fell 
back to the same place. When John had first seen the stereo, he had offered to buy it 
on behalf of his grandfather. 
Toru searched in vain for something to perch on, then sat cross-legged on the 
carpet. He tried not to think about what part it was, and what he and Momoko had 
done there. "I doubt that it works." The machine was now covered in dust and a few 
spiderwebs. 
John whistled, and Toru saw a pack of cigarettes flying his way. He caught the 
Marlboros and smiled. " Thanks. 
John swept an upturned hand toward Toru. "You're welcome." He recrossed his 
legs the opposite way, then clasped his hands in his lap. "So what are you doing 
106 
now?" 
"What do I do?" He struck the Marlboros against his palm. "Play guitar, read, 
study." Every day that week, he had gone to the library at noon to do his reading. He 
had to be ready for next week's finals. If he failed anything, the money would stop for 
good. But he struggled to read at the library. Many Japanese girls studied there. They 
would mouth lines of Japanese pop songs, and Toru would imagine Momoko singing. 
Not at the library, but in downtown Tokyo—she and her girlfriends disembarking at 
Shibuya station to rent a karaoke room at Big Echo. 
"That's good." John raised a fist to support his chin. "I was worried since you 
hadn't returned my texts or calls. I had thought about writing a letter." He again 
switched his legs, then replaced his chin on his hand. "By the way, I went for bubble 
tea yesterday with my friend Hank—have you been to the place? I took you there 
once, I think, last month—and I saw Momoko." His voice rose as if in question. 
Toru flicked his fingers together as his hand dangled over his knee. She couldn't 
have been wearing her white cardigan; she had left it behind. Toru had torn off its 
wooden buttons a few nights ago when he was drunk. Maybe her raspberry wind-
breaker. "How is she?" 
"Well. I think. She was by herself. We talked about International Week next 
term." John raised an index finger. "I've been meaning to ask-you're going to help 
with Japan Night, yes?" 
"Sure." 
"I knew you would. Anyway, Momoko looked good. And-" John leaned for-
107 
ward. "She asked about you." 
Toru's feet prickled as they neared numbness, but he ignored them. "What does 
that mean? What did she say?" 
"She said, '1 low is Torn?' " 
"And what did you say?" 
John smiled. "What should I have said?" 
Torn extended his legs, and his feet throbbed as blood rushed back. "I don't 
know. That I am doing well." 
"And so I did. You ought to go see her. She misses you." 
"Did she say that?" 
"No. but—" 
"She left me." Torn punched the carpet. "She knows where I am." 
John sat back, his smile gone. "You know—Hank's throwing a party tomorrow 
night. If you're done studying, you could come." 
Torn began to say no, but closed his mouth before it slipped out. There would 
be drinks, and he would at least know John. And maybe—maybe he could invite 
Momoko. She had wanted to know how he was. 
He rose. "I think I would like that," he said. "Going to your friend's party." 
"Great!" John clapped his hands. "Great." He was still for a moment, then 
glanced at his wristwatch. "I'll keep you posted." 
Toru escorted John to the door. A chilling gust blew in as he opened it, but he 
stayed to watch John drive down Southwest E. He felt alert in the cold, more than he 
108 
had in the past week. The refrigerator hummed, cooling a shortcase of Pabst, and 
Toru stepped inside. But he stopped at the edge of the carpet. Although he had pushed 
most of his junk into the corner, paper scraps, pop-tops, and bits of what could have 
been food cluttered the floor. He decided to vacuum. 
1 le didn't own one, but he knew a woman on the ground floor named Flora. 
They crossed paths at noon as Toru went to class and she came home on her lunch 
break from the bank. She was about thirty. Once, she had left cream of chicken in her 
slow cooker before going to work, and she invited Toru in to share. Her apartment 
was smaller than Toru's, and smelled only of the chicken. He left an hour later with a 
bulging stomach and no desire to go to school. 
Toru knocked on her maroon door. No lights were on. He waited a minute, then 
returned upstairs. I Ic could pick up some of what littered the floor. Just before his 
landing, he slipped on a patch of moss. His feet shot backward, and his right shoulder 
struck the cement. Toru cursed and picked himself up slowly. His shoulder throbbed, 
but didn't feel broken. He fumbled for his keys and retreated inside. 
The front room was inky, darker than it had been a few minutes before. Beyond 
the veranda, the late afternoon sun had dwindled to a deep evening grape. Toru sat in 
the armchair, hoping now for Momoko's smell; but he detected instead John's lightly 
bitter cologne. He had found the chatr on the sidewalk the same afternoon he met 
Momoko. Its upholstery had been worn, but not stained, and John had helped him 
carry it upstairs. The discovery had meant that Toru could invite Momoko over; she 
would have a place to sit. And there she had sat every time she came over. There-
109 
here—was the first and last place they had had sex. 
Betore he could rethink what he was doing, Toru pulled out his cell phone and 
dialed Momoko. Cocco's "Sweet Berry Kiss" played as it rang. Maybe she wouldn't 
answer his call; he should have blocked his number, or at least thought of something 
to say on her answering machine— 
"Hello?" 
1 le breathed in sharply. 
"Toru?" Then, under her breath, "I knew I should have let—" 
Toru stood. "1 li. I'm here. 1—how are you?" 
"I'm okay." for three seconds there was silence. "Have you been drinking?" 
"1 just wanted to talk, no!" He paced, kicking the floors clutter toward the 
walls. 
"Well, what did you want to talk about?" 
Toru stopped in front of the veranda. The sky's purple had deepened so that he 
could imagine it was the dark brown of Momoko's eyes. "I'd like to see you." 
"You didn't come to the cafe." There was a slight whimper. 
"1 was confused then. I'm still confused. But I want to see you." He sat in the 
chair and reclined. He detected a trace of lilac. "Would you like to go to a party to-
morrow night? It's at John's friend s house. 
Again there was silence. Momoko would probably want to wear her cardigan. 
Toru could ask Flora to sew the wooden buttons back on; he would tell her the truth, 
that he had pulled them off. She would understand. 
"Toru, I don't think so." 
"What? But—John said you asked how I was." 
"Is that why you called? I'm happy that you're doing well. But I am now, too. 
I'm not ready to do this again." 
"You don't want to go?" 
"1—no, 1 don't want to go." 
Toru hung up. 1 le almost threw his phone, but sat up and slipped it in his 
pocket. 1 lis breath came in heaves for a minute, and he waited to cry, but didn't. John 
would be sorry to hear that he had misread Momoko.Toru went to the kitchen and 
grabbed a Pabst. 
Outside, it was black. 1 Ic could barely distinguish the ash trees that stood be­
yond the streetlights' reach. A red dot shined from the corner of the room—the ste­
reo's standby light. I low many years ago had people owned these machines? Toru 
pressed play and wound the tape forward to "Aqualung." then sat in the chair. Silling 
on a park bench / Eyeing Hide girls with bad intent. He retrieved his guitar to play 
along, but stopped when the pain in his shoulder flared. Maybe he had broken some­
thing. He grabbed another beer from the refrigerator. Feeling like a dead duck / Spit­
ting oat pieces of his broken luck. /Sun streaking cold/An old man wander,ng lonely. 
Toru, listening to the lyrics for the first time, sympathized with the lonely old man. 
He let the tape finish and listened to tts whistling idle. No other sounds pene­
trated his walls. His neighbors were probably eating dinner in contented silence, and 
maybe reading over class notes. John was surely doing the same. Toru's brother was 
I l l  
in I lumboldt, smoking pot with friends. They met in someone's basement, he knew, 
chipped in. and took rips from the bong until everything was gone. His dad was at the 
office doing clerical work—if he still had his job—or maybe at home with a woman. 
Torn slammed his fist on his knee, then cursed as his shoulder blazed with pain, 
liven his old father had someone. So what if he paid for her? He had simply learned 
how things worked. She smiled, and touched, and made love, and she remained as 
long as there was money. Momoko was worse. Toru had taken care ot her, and paid 
for everything; when she left, he sought her back. And yet she stayed away. He rose 
from the chair, fiung open the sliding glass door, and spat to the grass his broken luck, 
112 
The Perfect Housewife 
Luke pressed the buzzer for Ellen's fourth-floor apartment, then stepped back 
into a slice of afternoon sun that lingered in the narrow cobblestone street. He had 
been warming himself on a bench in the piazza, and was sorry to have to come inside 
with an hour of daylight remaining. When a low grumble around the corner an­
nounced the approach of a Fiat 500, Luke retreated to the building's shady stoop to 
allow its passing. The car zipped by and disappeared around the next bend, and the 
entry way finally clicked open. 
Luke was relieved to find the lobby bare when he entered. A few days ago, 
Luke had had to tip-toe through at least two dozen flower baskets that covered the 
floor; several of the Mediterranean blooms were similar to those at his uncle's flower 
shop back home in Vermont. Apparently, a long-standing tenant and revered professor 
of Dante had died the day before. Ellen had been watching a dubbed Stallone movie, 
and just as a thunderous explosion collapsed the Holland Tunnel, an elderly man 
knocked at her door. Giuseppe Torrellini had just gone away, the man said-Ellen 
was specific about this; undoubtedly she liked how he'd used the Italian phrase "gone 
away" instead of "died"—and would she please keep the noise down? Ellen finished 
the movie on mute. 
The building's owners, a family of noble ancestry, had some years ago retrofit­
ted it with an elevator. It barely accommodated Luke, though he was only 5'8", and it 
113 
groaned with each ttip, so he climbed the stairs. Each stair was solid marble, white 
speckled with black, with smooth dips in the middle where two hundred years of feet 
had worn them away. Still, this building was not nearly the oldest in Macerata. The 
city dated to 1320, a span difficult to fathom even for Luke, who could trace his roots 
to New Amsterdam. Such history had compelled Luke apply for this graduate archi­
tecture program. I le admired the immortality of Italy, the permanence of place that 
would allow him and Ellen to bring their children to the same sites in twenty years. 
Surely by then he would have settled down into the role of husband and father. 
1 uke passed a few small, bent Italian women going about their daily shopping. 
They invariably lifted their heads from drab overcoats to study him, and he quickened 
his pace. 1 le wanted to chat with these world-wise women, to be a part of their com­
munity. but every broken syllable he uttered worked against him. Instead, he mar­
veled at these coats he had seen everyone over fifty wearing since his arrival a month 
ago on Labor Day. The broad array of colors the younger generations wore, even the 
men, seemed no less peculiar. But Luke received curious looks, too, when he strode 
through town in cargo shorts and a t-shirt. These glances held no animosity—far from 
it_but clearly, few Americans found their way to this little town. 
On an ordinary day, the younger women wore strange and alluring combina-
tions of purples and yellows the likes of which Luke had only seen on theater majors 
in the U.S. Linen and silk replaced the usual Amencan cottons and plaid wool. Ellen 
had embraced this fashion sea change wholeheartedly. Even, Wednesday before class, 
she searched for deals along the winding streets of downtown, and she rarely touched 
114 
her American wardrobe. Luke considered this overhaul a plus. 
Luke thought himself lucky to have come overseas with an evolving Italian 
fashionista, because, in a way, he felt he had been tricked. Other students, family 
friends, guide books—each had said that all the women in Italy were surpassingly 
beautiful. Such uniform beauty, though tantalizing, hadn't seemed possible, but he 
had heard it so many times that he began to believe it. But he had seen only normal 
people thus far—some pretty, some ugly, but most in-between. This should not have 
surprised him. but he Loll compelled to turn to the consistent beauty of art and archi­
tecture. Although Lllen never wanted to come on his extended walking tours, he 
sometimes insisted; he wanted them to experience this beauty together. 
On the fourth lloor, Luke approached the sturdy oak doors to his left, paused a 
moment to catch his breath, and pressed the button under "R.OSSETTI." A tinny buzz­
ing came through the tall, narrow double doors and filled the landing. It was a much 
more irritating and impatient sound than American doorbells. 
Two other apartments completed this floor, each with high sets of doors as im­
perious as Ellen's. Luke had never seen anyone come in or out. He tried in vain to 
read the brass nameplates from where he stood. The outer wall's one thick pane of 
crown glass cast a perpetual dusk upon the landing. He tapped his toot on the ground 
and combed down his curly hair with his fingers. 
"Chie?" Ellen said from the other side. 
"It's me," Luke said. "You just buzzed me up. 
She often used Italian with him, thinking he needed the practice. And he did, 
115  
but felt baifled enough dealing with old ladies and market vendors without having to 
decipher his girlfriend, too. 
Bolts slid up from the floor and down from the ceiling, and the door on the right 
swung partially open. Ellen had already disappeared somewhere, leaving Luke to the 
burgundy entryway. The landlord was a man of thirty or so, but perhaps his mother 
had died here and left him the apartment. If so, he had not disturbed her old uphol­
stery and carpets, out of respect or indifference. The apartment's best feature was at 
the end of the long central hallway: a series of hexagonal windows in Ellen's bed­
room. overlooking Piazza della Liberia and the rolling hills of the countryside a mile 
away. 
"Luke, come into the kitchen! Dinner's almost ready." 
Luke lingered for a moment, wishing he could watch the approaching sunset. 
The sun was not yet visible, but Ellen's white dresser and bedspread glowed orange 
under its light. A painting of a knight mounted on his steed hung above the head­
board, framed in matte-black. His visor was lifted, but no face showed behind; it 
seemed to be Italo Calvino's Nonexistent Knight. A pastel damsel on the wall opposite 
outstretched a white-gloved hand in greeting, but her attentions were not reciprocated. 
Luke feared she would soon turn her gaze on him and looked away. 
If he had brought the ring with him, he might have chosen to propose here. The 
sea lay in the opposite direction, but beneath this bank of windows spread seemingly 
the whole of the Marche wine country. It promised an infinity equal to that of the 
diamond he had chosen for Ellen back home. 
116 
He had picked the ring out at the mall before they left, assisted by a twenty-
something woman in a violet pantsuit. She had graduated from a fashion design and 
merchandising school in San Francisco, and although she was slightly overweight, 
she had still made herself attractive, so he trusted her advice on a ring. Luke had also 
asked Lllen's father for her hand, something that embarrassed him. But it had seemed 
something that Lllen would want to know he'd done. Her dad had listened politely but 
judiciously in his armchair as Luke explained how much he loved Ellen, and how he 
would always provide for her. After ten minutes, they shook on it, both of their hands 
slightly sweaty. In the end, though, Luke had left the ring in its display under the care 
of the woman in the pantsuit. He hadn't wanted to worry about it while traveling, or to 
have the pressure ol having to evaluate the romantic potential of every place they 
went. 
1 lc returned to the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. The TV was on 
now, blaring Italian music videos. Ellen stood by the stove at the near end of the 
room, a long, narrow rectangle with a table hidden in a niche at the far end. 
The room smelled heavily of onions and garlic, two of his favorite foods. 
Sometimes it was hard not to take Ellen for granted. He should have gone with her 
last night to the wine tasting in Montepulciano, rather than stay at home to do his 
homework; he should have spent last night with her. She had joined another couple 
from their architecture program, pretending to be interested in the countryside as Har­
lan sat across the bus aisle with Angela, his hand on her knee, and in the subtle differ­
ences of each red as Harlan and Angela shared a glass. 
117 
Ellen wore one of her market outfits tonight: her favorite pants—a tight pair of 
royal blue jeans she boasted felt like linen—and a thirty-euro royal blue "Italia" 
sweatshirt that Luke had seen elsewhere selling for five. 
"Maddy's joining us for dinner, if that's all right." Ellen nodded her head toward 
the opposite corner of the room. "Her plans with Justine fell through." 
A jolt moved through Luke, a series of chilling tingles that ran to the ends of his 
limbs. "What?" 
A silky voice came from the far end of the kitchen. "Is that okay?" 
Luke entered the kitchen proper and peered into the alcove: there sat Maddy, 
whom he had hoped he might avoid for two more months until they all returned to the 
U.S., where she would be three time zones away in Gig Harbor, Washington. But here 
she was, doe-eyed, her Italian textbook open before her. 
1 lis stomach tightened as Maddy—six feet, tall even in her chair—watched him 
with dun eyes. Those same eyes had penetrated his apartment's peephole the previous 
night, slightly glazed but wide open. 
"Yeah," Luke said. "Sure." 
"Where's Josh," Maddy had stated in slurred, quiet words on the other side of 
the peephole. Her wavy auburn hair lay about her shoulders. 
Josh, Luke's roommate, was gone, but Luke opened the door. Maddy walked 
calmly toward him, murmured, "Josh," and lowered her head to kiss him. He held still 
a moment, then lifted his chin to meet her mouth, and Maddy's tongue left a trail of 
118 
saliva across his upper lip. It tasted of Fernet-Branca. Luke knew the responsible 
thing to do: put her to bed in Josh's room. But Maddy was so drunk that she might 
vomit, maybe even sul locate in it. Her eyelids were drooping, her narrow nose flaring 
slightly as she breathed, her weight collapsing onto him. He put his arm through 
Maddy's and led her down the hall to his bed, laying her on top of his covers. She 
reached toward him, clutching at the air with her fingers, then let her arms drop. Her 
eyes fluttered open and closed. He settled into his chair across from her with a glass 
of red wine and a chapter on Ghiberti's bronze doors. He had finished two pages 
when Maddy's bra landed on his laptop keyboard. For a moment he stared at its cups, 
as deep as his wine glass and darker than its contents, then he swiveled around. 
Maddy was sprawled naked on his turquoise comforter. 
fhc only woman Luke had ever seen naked betore was Ellen, and she would 
only undress with the lights off, leaving Luke to see her with his hands. Then she 
would come alive, call his name, and hold him tight. 
Maddy said nothing, but fixed her eyes upon him. His hands craved to explore 
this great beauty, manifested from Birth of Venus and lying as if BoTtthicee lli had 
arranged her. Atop her long, slender neck, her head cocked ten degrees, and thick 
locks of her auburn hair outspread on his pillow as if blown. Her expression was se­
rene-steady brown eyes, lips lightly met-a conscious calm that promised all of her 
body, in time. Her hands, meanwhile, apologized ambivalently, her right placed inef­
fectually across her breasts, her left fenning over her groin. Between them, the dips 
and curves of her stomach rippled with every short, shallow breath. Luke throbbed. 
119 
No woman so beautiful would come to him like this again. He ached to make love to 
her. to touch her. to shape her on his bed as Botticelli did on canvas. This was the 
beauty he had come to Italy for. This moment. He stripped to his Jockey shorts and 
lay beside her, wanting and not wanting to move her hands. Wanting her to remain 
Venus. I le moved the hand from her breast, but left the other. They kissed, slowly and 
deeply, quietly, until Maddy raised her head to Luke's ear. "Luke." 
The throbbing stopped, and Luke saw anew the drunk girl beneath him. Had she 
moaned, or called him Josh, he could have gone on, sculpting her until she, and he, 
had crumbled. But now he thought of Ellen whispering his name; he smelled and 
tasted once more the alcohol on Maddy, and rose to pull on his pants. 
Maddy sal at Ellen's kitchen table, her gaze returned to the Italian textbook 
spread before her. She had passed out soon after she spoke his name. By the time Josh 
returned front the disco near sunrise, Luke had moved her to his bed-where she had 
thrown up, not on Josh's comforter, but into a pair of tennis shoes on the floor along­
side. Luke shuddered. The smell of vomit in the small room had been acrid. He went 
to Ellen and placed his hand on the small of her back as she stirred a pot of tomato 
sauce. Her chest fit snugly into his side. 
"Smells good," he said. 
" Bene.It needs to be good if I'm going to be making it for you for the rest of 
our lives." 
When she turned to Luke and winked, it felt like a slap. But she often spoke of 
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their future like that. 
"Just another minute," she said. 
But even with Ellen's gaze on her saucepan, and Maddy's on her textbook, Luke 
knew he had the better part ot each girl's attention. The narrow kitchen felt claustro­
phobic. 1 le could nearly touch both walls simultaneously, and the stovetop's rising 
steam turned opaque the thin windows looking onto the alley below. Only a dozen 
strides away he could be in Ellen's room, and track the arc of the falling sun across 
the clear bedroom windows. 1'he final minutes of daylight on the piazza below were 
always beautiful; the sun's rays painted the pavement scarlet. Someone surely ad­
mired the scene now from the bench where Luke had been not half an hour ago. 
The legs of Maddy's chair scraped across the floor. She approached Ellen at the 
stove, her slight hips swaying beneath her pastel skirt, and held out her book. 
"Not now, Maddy." Ellen said. "I'm just about to take the sauce off." 
"Just a quick question." She extended her arm farther. "How do you conju­
gate—" 
"Maddy, just wait till after dinner." Ellen's voice deepened slightly. 
Briefly. Luke hoped that Ellen might turn on Maddy, push her away; Ellen had 
always been stronger than Luke. But she only waved Maddy away with her stirring 
hand. A lew spots of sauce spattered Maddy's lined pages. 
Maddy turned to Luke with raised eyebrows, then winked and returned to her 
chair. Perhaps she didn't remember much. Or anything at all. He felt a strum of ex­
citement in his hands as he thought of keeping the memory for himself. Despite his 
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weakness and shame, lor the rest ot his lite he would be able to recall Maddy's finely 
cralted body and his passion tor it. As she returned to her book and her face relaxed, 
Luke once more saw the striking lines and silent beauty of Venus, and he wanted to 
lay her out upon the white linoleum. 
1{ lien's hand rested on his biceps. "Honey, would you grab the plates from the 
cupboard?" 
"Of course, honey." 
I {lien smiled. She loved pet names, although they felt empty to Luke; they were 
what TV actors said when they pretended to love each other. He used one now only to 
distance himself from Maddy. Maybe when he and Ellen married, he would devise his 
own pet name for her, something simple but unique, something he could believe in. 
Linen, maybe, like her pants. He watched as she stirred her sauce. Ladle. Yes, she 
would be his ladle, scooping him up. 
1 le should have brought the ring. Its three-quarter carat, princess-cut diamond 
gleamed right now from the center of its dark purple cushion, an ocean away. He 
could almost feel the ring box against his thigh. Were it there, he would lead Ellen 
away from the stove and Maddy and the old ladies and out to the piazza, where, just 
as the sun sunk behind the clock tower, he would sit Ellen on the bench, kneel, and 
pledge himself to her. 
Luke carried the plates to the table and set them out, placing one across 
Maddy's notebook. She smiled; she seemed to think he was being playful. 
"What was it happened to your dinner plans?" Luke asked. 
122 
"Justine cancelled." Maddy thumped her pencil's pink eraser top on the table­
cloth. 
"Just like that, huh?" 
Maddy shrugged her shoulders, smiling still. Luke noted for the first time a chip 
on one of her front teeth. "Just like that," she said. 
Luke wondered how much time Maddy had spent alone with Ellen before he 
arrived. How far beyond pleasantries their conversation had gone. Some day, at least, 
perhaps when he had the ring, Ellen would have to know. 
"Good thing Ellen always makes a lot." 
"Yes, good thing," Ellen said, walking up with the pasta and sauce. "The perfect 
housewife." 
A lew weeks ago they had been studying pictures of the abbey in Tolentino, and 
she had stopped him midway through his explanation of its rose window. "You know 
I'm only studying this stutt because ot you, right? shed asked. 
The question took him aback, and she continued before he could think of what 
to say. 
"Don't get me wrong," she said, placing a hand on his forearm, its interest­
ing—but I'll be just as happy to stay at home while you go oft to be the professor. 
Luke's mother had stayed home until he was out of middle school, but he had 
been surprised to hear Ellen share this preference, especially given her excitement to 
be in Italy. A tidy house and a hot dinner every night would be lovely. But her world 
would be so small; he would live and grow, and she would languish. What would they 
123 
talk about? 
Now Ellen served each of them with her wooden spoon—not really a ladle, 
Luke realized—then set the dishes in the sink to soak. 
The square table barely fit inside its niche; one of its sides was flush against the 
wall. Maddy and Ellen sat opposite each other, Luke in-between. A bare bulb layered 
with dust extended from the wall above. Luke let the girls take the first bites. Ellen 
had embellished her sauce with zucchini and eggplant, a recipe similar to something 
they had ordered at a restaurant the week before. He ate and sipped red wine for sev­
eral minutes without looking up, half-listening as the girls discussed bits ot Italian 
grammar. 
"The pasta is wonderful," he said. "Don't you think so, Maddy? But then he 
noticed that her plate was still nearly full. 
"I don't like eggplant," she said. "It's too spongy." 
"So eat around it." 
"Ellen chopped it too small." 
Luke leaned back in his chair and laughed. He had been foolish last night. Now, 
in the washed-out light of the alcove, she lacked glamour: her hair lay lifeless, and 
her face appeared slightly yellow. 
Ellen raised her eyebrows. "If she doesn't like it, she doesn t have to eat it, she 
said. 
"Good," Maddy said. "I won't." 
They both turned to Luke. 
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"Maddy." He leaned forward. "Ellen probably spent four hours cooking this 
sauce." 
"Two hours," Ellen said. 
"Two hours!" Luke said. "And you're not going to eat it." 
"It's not a big deal," Ellen said in the even tone she used when explaining a 
grammatical rule. "She just doesn't like eggplant." 
"Well, 1 love it," he said. "Here." He pulled Maddy's plate over and cocooned 
his fork in spaghetti. 
"What are you doing." Ellen's voice did not rise into a question. 
"Not letting your pasta go to waste." 
"Maddy was eating from that plate. That's gross." 
"Why is that gross?" Maddy asked. "Do I have cooties?" Her smile seemed 
painted on—not the subtle, entrancing smile of Botticelli's Venus, but a grotesque ric­
tus from a Goya canvas. Luke wished the ages to whisk by and wash away her crim­
son lips. 
"Luke." 
He looked at Ellen. "What?" 
"Stop." 
"Stop what?" 
Ellen's cheeks were sucked in slightly. "Stop staring at her." 
His eye had lingered too long. But he deserved her reproach, desired it even, 
and he did not protest. He twirled more pasta around his fork. 
125 
"Luke, stop." Ellen pushed her chair back a foot, preparing to rise— 
"One more bite." 
Ellen leaned forward and placed her hand on his wrist; her fingertips settled 
lightly on the back of his hand, with her knuckles arched. She pressed her lips to­
gether and squared her chin, and a slight horizontal line ran across her forehead. Her 
eyes were wide palettes of green. A gentle admonition. 
Luke's hand lay tense under her touch. He wanted Ellen to press her flesh to his, 
to raise her voice. He wanted her to be angry. I spent last night with Mfaddy, he 
wanted to say. 
But Ellen lifted her hand from his and began to eat in silence. Luke felt another 
pair of eyes, but he ignored them. He pushed away the plate of spaghetti and sat back 
cold, sad, and limp.