Porochista Khakpour, “Kingdoms”—

“But she wonders. Wonders what it would have been like to redo the Martha’s Vineyard vacation, the night, the meeting, how easily a bad thing can be set right again by putting just a slight crease in a moment.”

Aaron Steven Miller, “The One Arm”—

“In ten days, he could see exactly what was happening. The original nubbin had gotten longer, and the formations in its middle had extended too. It was very clear now that what he gazed upon was a very tiny, brand new arm, complete with a hand, with four little fingers and a thumb.”

Leona Theis, “How Sylvie Failed to Become a Better Person Through Yoga” (Winner of the American Short Fiction Contest)—

“Later that evening as the group sat in silent meditation, Sylvie snuck a glance at Will, whose eyes remained closed, his expression steady, no twitch of his lips under his shaggy mustache. This gave Sylvie confidence that with time she might feel the way the other people in the room felt. Appeared to feel. Between one yoga session and the next she would sometimes think of Satya and Animesh as they’d looked that first evening, shining in the dark doorway. Followed, without apparent logic, by the thought that she hadn’t taken a five-finger discount on anything in months, not a magazine from the corner store, not a sweater from Eaton’s, not a pair of panties, not the change off Lisa’s dresser; she hadn’t lifted a thing. Maybe she’d left that back in her Jack life, and maybe it would stay there.”

Kyle McCarthy, “Ancient Rome”—

“She is paying attention now. She says, ‘Are you a feminist?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Are you?’
She hesitates. ‘Yes.’ She looks both bashful and proud. ‘But I don’t do any feminist work.’
‘Me neither,’ I tell her, and we grin at each other, like two housewives who’ve just admitted that we don’t iron the sheets.”

Matt Bell, “Doll Parts”—

“She knew the straight line she was walking in—a line that, if she turned around upon it, would lead back to her own yard—was probably not the best way to find a person. And so she was not surprised she did not find the brother, only his checkered shirt buried beneath a blanket of snow where no one but she would find it, its buttons torn free of their stitches, its flannel covered in mud and leaves and something else the sister told herself was also mud and leaves.”

Smith Henderson, “The Trouble”—

“The kid smirked and looked away. Like a plan had come off or was set in motion. He dashed around the truck and got in. Said his name was Keith. He’d been praying for a ride since Forsyth, where he’d been looking for his uncle. He said he was eighteen, but Henry didn’t believe it. The scar on his arm was from a fight in Seattle. So was the tattoo. Seattle had marked him up good. But then he found Jesus, the Lord’s forgiveness. He wasn’t gonna lie about nothing no more. He had stuck needles in his arm and had been on the wrong path. He wasn’t gonna lie about it. He was saved and had decided to find his aunt, see if he could get a clean start. His uncle—the one in Forsyth—said she was in Tenmile, so that’s how Keith come to be here. All of this was the truth.”