Sublime

Across the road from where she’s parked, aspens tumble down the basin toward Fish Lake, where five years earlier a Chinese refugee engineer took his three daughters camping on the way to visiting Yellowstone.

The tide was high. I stayed near the edge and dunked my head all the way to the bottom, grabbed fistfuls of pebbles and tried to bring them all the way back up. But when I got to the surface, my hands were practically empty. One time, I wound up with a small, empty burgado seashell that looked like a shiny, worn moon.

Instead of growing up inquisitive and restless, she had developed a profound desire to stay, as if her center of gravity was so low it connected her directly to this particular patch of earth.

obdurate.

But in the world of satisfying stories—her preferred domain—both of Olivia’s parents are so much less than they should have been.

you think a mother is a hard rock to run up against, try pushing back on a dead one.

Leigh’s elm, Jean’s ash, Emmett’s ironwood, and Adam’s maple, each made from identical green puffballs.