One day, Mercedes Bernal went to work in a three-piece suit, carrying a long umbrella. A big orchid bloomed from her buttonhole; a thin mustache adhered above her lip. She had expected an instant laugh – that would have been the natural reaction back in Mexico. But the whole office fell silent and stared as she strode through the swinging glass doors, hung her blazer …
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Aimee did not intend to stalk her therapist. It happened, as these things do, somewhat naturally. One day she was taking a walk in her neighborhood, that kind of fast-paced foot hitting pavement boom boom boom sort of walk, when she saw her therapist’s car. It wasn’t like she went out looking for it. But there it was, parked in a driveway, with bumper stickers …
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In Leila’s Balkan country most people cowered in permanent unease. Anxious about the propuh, an ill-meaning air draft apparently possessed of ambiguously mystical but lethal powers, their wet hair after bathing, or sitting on cold stairs because if you did – your bladder would catch the ‘bladder flu’. Or, you could get brain inflammation from that un-dried wet hair and die. Or pneumonia. And die …
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stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance
The pitter-patter woke Sheila the first night. A rush of footsteps tumbled through her apartment, back-and-forth past her bedroom door – a staccato like fat drops of rain hitting a tin roof. She sat up and pulled the sheets over her knees, up to her chest. She tucked her ratty t-shirt tight to her body, hugging herself. …
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When the half-moon, past a half night bent its light on the red-brown building,the misery, it quickened, the despair, it doubled, grim thoughts like fiends fourscore, the spirit they pummeled.
The Bonners, they were at it again; rusty springs on their bed creaking as the walls shook with their heaving and cursing and panting. They’d cast their blind boy outside the shabby one-room apartment; he played …
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