Sublime

hungry for choice and certainty.

She was, quite simply, a nice lady who’d raised a family and now lived quietly with her cats and grew vegetables. This was both nothing and everything.

“You must have a very kind husband,” a woman said, “to look after your daughter while you do this.” “What do you mean?” Olive asked, but of course she knew what the woman meant. “Well, he’s looking after your daughter, while you do this,” the woman said. “Forgive me,” Olive said, “I fear there’s a problem with my translator bot. I thought you said

of them, it was obvious. He avoided them, and in a way they avoided him too.

“He’s like a wild dog,” he’d heard Adele tell her. “You give him a nice bed, he still feel better sleepin in the dirt.”

The hormones—they were a possession all their own.

I tell myself she was a luxury, like fruit out of season, lucky to have but temporary.