Kate Ryan

12:48 AM. Why would someone schedule an exorcism for the middle of a weeknight?

He died a violent death. I saw him myself, flopping between wooden blades, his head bent back strangely.

Alison learned from her grandmother how a plastic smile could take you places—especially in a place like Hollywood.

She gropes for attention while he dies in the other room.

The case of beer I brought, as my mother explained, is “pure poison” and so I must drink it all by myself.

The bread had to be store-bought and white, of course, so as not to raise a red flag among my classmates. I still see rebellion in a ham sandwich.

She knows you’re not supposed to call it an “it,” but she honestly can’t tell if it’s a boy or girl or . . . undecided.

The birds abandon their posts in the pepper trees, sending tiny, oblong leaves raining to the ground.

Someone would always cook in their tighty whities, his package at eye level for the person doing French homework at the kitchen table.

One crawled up the side of the bag and opened her wings, a hardtop convertible with legs.