I am married to a man who covers murders. Specifically, he reports on the cases of men who murder women they know—their wives and exes, their girlfriends and lovers and their lovers’ sisters, who (as it turns out) are also their lovers. My husband’s spiral notebook lies open next to my rice cooker.

Like thoroughbreds at Churchill Downs, my ten-year-old daughter Lily and I prepare to surge out the kitchen door. I’m ready first. Sitting in an aluminum chair, I read while I wait for her.

what matters most ishow well youwalk through thefire. – Charles Bukowski My brother did the shoveling while the gravedigger looked on. It was important he do the shoveling himself. To fill the hole.

It’s Christmas Eve and, for the first time ever, I’ve brought a boyfriend home to Louisiana for the holidays. I’m thirty, and Michael is forty, so it might seem odd that lounging together on my squeaky girlhood bed feels so remarkable.

1 It was 1983 and I was six years old, riding between my father and brother in my father’s Oldsmobile, back when front seats stretched from door to door. My father drove, and my brother, who was nineteen, already grown, sat on the other side of me with his window down and his arm draped on the door, his elbow jutting out of the car a little.

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