Recipe Index

My mom turned white, but it wasn’t out of fear for me. It was out of fear because someone had just said out loud a lie she had used too many times. My Aunt Lucy gripped the cell phone. —“What do you mean, ‘legal guardian’? Valerie is sixteen years old.” There was an awkward silence…

PART 1 “I’d rather be buried before I ever set foot in this house again!” was what my daughter screamed the day she left the States with a Korean man twice her age. She was barely twenty-one years old. I stood at the door, wearing my apron, my hands smelling of onions, watching her get…

PART 2 On the way home, Sophia said almost nothing. She kept touching her hair as if she still didn’t understand where it had gone. I drove with my hands so tight on the wheel that my fingers ached. When we got inside, I made her some chamomile tea. She sat in the kitchen wearing…

Alexander walked out of the building clutching the hundred-dollar bill in his hand, but instead of going to the corner cafeteria, he walked two more blocks, went into a small neighborhood coffee shop, and ordered a plain Americano. While he waited, he looked at his reflection in the glass. The blue uniform. The thick glasses….

Veronica didn’t move. From the crack in the hallway door, she watched Daniel take Emily’s pink lunchbox, check that her backpack was zipped, and carefully tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, as if they were about to do something important. He didn’t look like a man running away. He didn’t look like a…

—“You did the right thing,” I told her. —“This could have been much worse. Tomorrow I’ll find you a plumber.” Carolina wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, embarrassed by her own tears, as if even fear had to present itself with an apology in her home. —“Thank you, Daniel. Truly… I… I…

I sat there, frozen. It wasn’t just Evan’s handwriting, or the address in the Bayview District, or even the threat hidden in that last sentence. It was the way everything suddenly clicked together, like pieces of a puzzle you’ve had in front of your face for years without wanting to see it. My dad closing…

—“This can’t be,” Mark whispered. Pilar ripped the red notice off the door with such force she nearly broke a fake nail. She read it aloud, but her voice faded with every line. —“By order of the owner, entry is prohibited to Mark Herrera, Pilar Salvatierra, and Beatriz Herrera. Any attempt to enter will be…

“Don’t worry,” she said. “That’s what mental incapacity is for.” I felt the floor drop out from under me, but I didn’t make a sound. The next morning, I prepared coffee as if I hadn’t heard a thing. Ryan came downstairs smiling; Chloe did too. They wore the faces of people who believe their prey…

Lucy walked out of the study with heavy steps, as if every floorboard had personally offended her. I stood motionless, the open book in my hands, staring at a page I didn’t read. Downstairs, I heard her talking on the phone in a low voice. I couldn’t catch every word, but one sentence pierced me…