Vedha’s dad checked the cuffs of his light blue, pure polyester shirt and, satisfied, was ready to tear himself from the mirror and go to work.

Ben is a lanky, tow-headed lad whose family arrived in this small Pacific Northwest town in the fall of 1941 as an infant, with his seven older siblings standing on the running boards, clinging to the sides of the rickety Model A pick up their parents had bartered for by picking peaches and apples the previous summer in Eastern Washington.

It all begins with the light falling on the wood.

The elevator doors slid open, flooding Eloise with the mindscapes of its three passengers.

When I met Shawna she was recovering from a brain injury.

The ball park was like a concrete kettle, but this day it held the cold wind of late October.

Rania lifts her head off the cot to peer between her knees. Omaja, with her head buried between them, in a cotton white sari, looks like a water lily floating in and out of view.

The holidays were upon us, and everything around us was cheerful, bright, and merry.

Colleen pulls in front of my house, blasting the horn as I grab my parka, charge outside, and yank open the passenger door. “Get in, MK. We don’t have much time.”

When you have your big toe amputated, it makes your foot look larger, which is unexpected.

The long boreen, down from my house, faces the rising sun and I usually rise with it.