Carlos couldn’t stop sobbing that night because the ringing in his ear was loud. You shared a bedroom with him, and you told him to be quiet but he bawled anyway, his mouth open and really gummy. His breath smelled of milk and garlic. “It’s in my ear, Lila. You want to listen?” You put your ear close to your brother’s and, of course, you heard nothing. You carried him over and let him sleep next to you even though it was a warm night.

To celebrate having passed the boards for foreign medical graduates, my father bought a new Chevy Caprice station wagon, turtle green with matching interior. The flatbed in the back folded into a bench seat that faced the rear.

Labor Day weekend at the Brown family beach house was a time-honored tradition, so it only made sense that George would make the long trip up from Washington.

Everyone smokes, including the Dictator, whose long massive pipe, clenched between his lips, serves at once as an extension of his power and an affirmation of his will. 

As I drive, the country highway’s pattern of overgrown campgrounds, boarded-up motels, and stretches of impenetrably dark woods begin to resemble a series of horror movie sets, at last punctuated by a white-steepled church illuminated with halogen lights. 

Josh was eleven when he surpassed his dad Gary in muscle mass.