Main Dishes

Part 1 The morning air in Red Hollow tasted like dust and dying summer, a heavy, stagnant heat that made the lungs work for every breath. Walter Hayes stood on his leaning porch, his hands curled around a lukewarm mug of black coffee that did nothing for the ache in his lower back. He was…

Karen’s clipboard sagged in her grip. The plastic corner scraped against her thigh, and she didn’t seem to notice. Her mouth opened and closed twice, hunting for a word that wouldn’t betray her. She found none. The tall man — Evan, Mara had called him — had apparently been arrested before, because the look on…

PART TWO THE CELEBRATION The sedan moved through streets still wet from the early rain, its engine a low hum beneath the silence Celeste and I had learned to share long ago. She didn’t ask if I was okay. She didn’t tell me I looked thin, or pale, or haunted. She simply handed me a…

Part 1 The humidity in Atlanta doesn’t just sit on you; it owns you. It felt like a damp wool blanket as I walked down that cracked sidewalk in Vine City, the soles of my heels clicking rhythmically against the uneven pavement. Beside me, Ryan was unusually quiet, his hand gripping mine just a little…

Part 1 The humidity in Lagos usually feels like a wet blanket, but tonight, the air was sharp with the scent of expensive cologne and ozone. I was hunched over a rusted bin near the Victoria Island strip, my fingers grazing the cold aluminum of a discarded soda can. My stomach was a hollow pit,…

PART 1 The phone didn’t ring on Sunday. For eleven years, that had never happened. Sunday at noon was ours. Clifton would call. But that Sunday passed in silence. And I noticed. Not with panic. Just the quiet awareness of a woman who knows when something inside her house has shifted. I’m Ernestine Ashford. I…

Part 1 The humidity in the city always smells like hot asphalt and desperation, a scent that sticks to the back of my throat while I stand outside the Kang Plaza Hotel. I’m nine years old, and to the suits rushing past, I’m just a part of the architecture—a smudge of charcoal skin and a…

PART 1 The last thing I saw before the glass shattered was the flame. Not a real flame, just the flicker of the dining room chandelier catching the curved edge of my mother’s favorite crystal candle holder. It whistled past my ear so close I felt the wind of it before it exploded against the…

Part 1 The Aldderon was forty floors above the Atlanta heat, a glass cage for people who owned the world. I moved through the rooftop air like a ghost, my white apron a shroud of invisibility. The air smelled of rain, expensive gin, and the kind of perfume that cost more than my monthly rent….

Part 1   The smell of cinnamon pretzels at the Westfield Mall used to be my daughter’s favorite thing. Now, it’s the scent of my own d*ath. Maya was bouncing beside me, her small hand warm and sticky in mine. I’d finally saved enough from my dental receptionist paycheck to get her those light-up sneakers…