Ramon was the golden child of a musical Catalan family. He’d been handed a trumpet at age five and told, “This is your future.”

I severed the tranquility of the silent forest with my laughter. It was a warning to the beast, I told myself.

“I know you’ve got to ask it,” he said, interrupting her. Again, he felt like his mouth was moving without his control. He hadn’t talked this openly in years.

When you buy a house, no one tells you how many animals will die on your property.

Naoki stood there saying nothing, and I sat there doing the same. I looked down at the receipt, feeling a melancholic pang in my chest that I subsequently understood to be heartburn. My last Great 28” had been eaten, though I had no reason to suspect such a farewell would be taking place when I woke up that morning.

The last car-filled donation drop at the Goodwill had been only five days earlier. Had Barry been a part of that drop? She couldn’t remember. At that moment, standing in front of the clown, that old friend, that old foe, it felt like a fresh wound, though she could have sworn it had already scabbed over.