Terremoto

We had to put my husband in an asylum. My daughter corrects me whenever I use this word; it’s a psychiatric clinic, Mother, she says. According to my daughter… More

A Wonderful Thing

1. The streetlights cast a hazy yellow glow on the cobblestone road, reflecting lazily off the mist-covered bricks. The scent of confederate jasmine was in the air, along with the… More

Brother’s Peeper

It began with a collect phone call, a crosscountry Greyhound ride, and a one-meal-a-day budget. Jeffery Digger got off at night, picking his teeth with a ticket stub. Nobody… More

Heartbreak Tango

FIRST EPISODEThe shadows on the dance floor,this tango brings sad memories to mind,let us dance and think no morewhile my satin dress has a chanceto shine like a tear… More

Matthew

Matthew was a grave little boy. When I say that he was grave, what I mean is that he was not the type of little boy who would run… More

Fault

“It’s your fault,” the father said to his son. The father wore gold wire-framed glasses upon his bulbous nose. His neatly trimmed white beard covered a softness that often… More

Ilustrado

PrologueThe Panther lurks no longer in foreign shadows—he’s come home to rest. Crispin Salvador’s fitting epitaph, by his request, is merely his name.—from an unattributed obituary, The Philippine Sun,… More

The Black Minutes

I had the most important nightmare of my life so far while traveling in a bus down a highway flanked by pine trees. I haven’t been able to figure… More

The Dead Republic

Model Ts prowling the country, men in trenchcoats moving in to kill me. But the Civil War was three decades gone, and it was just a Limerick taxi. I… More