Bella wanted Miss Chu to know that she understood the indifference they both had to endure; she wanted Miss Chu to suffer less because she was suffering with her. Yet Miss Chu treated Bella with more sarcasm than she treated the other students. 

David Means reads his story “Two Ruminations on a Homeless Brother,” from the May 1, 2017, issue of the magazine. 

Lara Vapnyar reads her story “Deaf and Blind” from the April 24, 2017, issue of the magazine. 

The next day, Lakshman telephoned India. He gripped the phone and spoke in a soft, tight voice. “Mommy says she is going to stay in bed and drink.” Even as he was speaking, he knew that his father would find some way to make light of what was happening. His father said, “What else does she do anyway?”

He stood there for another few minutes before a boy and a girl ambled toward him, the boy not immediately recognizable as his son. It was Rowan, obvious now as the boy got closer, and Richard pretended he’d known all along. Wasn’t that what parents were supposed to do? Be able to spot their children in a crowd, in an instant, the most primal of recognitions?

Kate and I looked at each other and shrugged. Hector was lonely and missing his children. It made sense. But then Kate noticed something, and that was when the holiday went irrecoverably wrong. 

He pushes her against a tree, and even though his hand is somewhere else, the girl feels it on her throat. She can’t speak. She only squeaks. A shadow falls, as if to give them privacy. The man takes full advantage. “Get the fuck away from her.”There’s a sudden cracking sound, and the man whelps. 

This was the part of the journey that he loved best: the street lamps gave way to the idea of countryside, and there was a song on the radio as the road opened up ahead. The music made him feel like he could keep driving forever. It was a love song, or a sad song. It reminded him of a time in his life, some town he was in, he could not say where. 

Take back your mink, take back your pearls. But you don’t sing that song, it’s not in your key. Let some other girl sing it.The type who gets a smile from a cop even if she’s crossing Broadway in her oldest Terylene housedress. You don’t have that luxury. 

Lotte said, “I have not told Alana or Minnie that I’ve died. I thought awhile before telling Sam, but he was fine. He was really very good about it, my poor Sam.”