Xiang Yu

I opened my front door because someone kept knocking, and my yard was full of pigs. Pink ones, blue ones, ceramic ones, plastic ones — they lined the porch steps…

I remember the fever more than anything else from that week. Ava had been cranky for two days — the low-grade, clingy kind of cranky that every parent learns to…

I didn’t go to my ex-husband’s wedding because I knew exactly what I would look like sitting there. I would look like the woman who lost her husband to the…

The last normal morning of my life started with a stuffed rabbit named Mr. Bun-Bun. Ava was sitting at the kitchen counter in her pink pajamas, swinging her legs the…

I was seven years old the last time I saw my mother. It was an ordinary Tuesday morning, which is the part I’ve turned over in my mind more times…

I worked at the cardboard packaging plant for twenty-three years. My hands smelled like glue and paper dust by the end of every shift, and most nights my back made…

Elliot transferred into our junior class on a Wednesday in October, and by Friday, people were already making fun of him. I noticed him before any of that started. He…

Jack died on a Tuesday. That’s the thing about losing someone suddenly — the day of the week brands itself into you. Not the date, not the season. The day….

On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, the state of Illinois handed me my life in a cardboard box. No cake. No candles. Nobody standing in a doorway saying they…