Life in a Fishbowl

Love can make us weak-kneed and wobbly, but when it needs to, it can make us stronger than steel.

But not all markers are noticed, not all triggers pulled. It would be many, many years before either girl would find out whether her own dormant Glio would awake. But those are stories for another time.

Their house was being transformed into a cruel kind of fishbowl, and all they could do was pucker and swim. ***

While time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, it does provide just enough scar tissue to allow people to move on.

Jackie hated herself for sounding so pathetic, but she didn't know what else to do, how else to be.

Ethan also knew that denying Jared medical care would be tantamount to murder, and while that would make for good television, it wouldn't resonate with the sponsors.

on the rag, he thought—sat

And even though he knew it was through no fault of his own, Glio had spent his life as a thief and a murderer. The realization was overwhelming. Glio howled in agony as he retreated into himself. ***

It was the most ignored rule on set; male members of the crew would routinely watch Deirdre—and her teenage daughters—shower. “I

die. Glio didn’t know how, but he needed to stop that from happening. In the meantime, he would continue his feast. ***

It was like a never-ending-memory bowl at Olive Garden, and Glio wasn’t shy about going back for seconds.

It was as if he were the personification of a story where someone was removing all the adjectives, conjunctions, and adverbs, so the only things left were nouns and verbs. Glio

After Glio was done giving Baby Jackie a sponge bath, he stumbled onto something truly remarkable.

Your sister, whatever faults she may have, is a strong girl.” Her mother paused and looked at Jackie a long moment before continuing. “We’re going to need you to be strong, too, Jax.” Jackie

she still thought that Rosa Parks should have followed the rules.

The show ended in one ginormous explosion of color and light, then faded like the evening sky on the most perfect night.

They edged along the wall, moving closer to the sound until they were outside their father’s study. As soon as they got there, Jackie recognized the noise for what it was. Her parents were making love. Jackie

An evil thought flashed through the Sister’s mind: she felt satisfaction that God would strike Mr. Stone down before he could use his legislative power to wrap man’s greatest sin in the cloak of governmental protection.

On this one morning, after he was done with his water, Boots turned around, wagged his tail, took a step toward Hazel, and fell over. Hazel screamed. The

Jackie was too stunned to react right away. But crying is like yawning; once one person starts, the other person can’t help but join in. ***

Sherman’s moral compass was left to drift unchecked. It spun round and round, never quite finding north. It

While Sister Benedict felt certain that people read her blog, they rarely left comments. When they did, they usually took the form of “Get a life, you f***ing joke,” only the “uck” wasn’t blocked out. This

In later years a team of geneticists would discover a particular DNA marker (on chromosome 15q) that was responsible for human empathy. A subsequent study would determine that successful heads of state, corporate CEOs, and avid weekend cyclists were missing this particular marker in a much higher proportion than the rest of society.

But most of all, Ethan Overbee liked the things Monique would do for him when he closed the door to his Santa Monica office. It never occurred to Ethan that he made Monique feel like a high-priced prostitute, and that her sense of self-worth was so permanently destroyed she couldn’t even look in the mirror without wanting to throw up.

And while Jared’s brain tumor was most certainly a three-alarm fire, it had yet to be phoned in. Jackie

Death is an anagram for hated, Jared thought. He realized the quiet room was, in fact, helping him think more clearly. “I’m

In that moment, the tumor knew, the bond formed between father and daughter was unbreakable. It paused to savor that feeling, letting the unbridled happiness envelop it. Then the high-grade glioblastoma multiforme devoured the memory whole. ***

Deirdre was crying. More than anything, the glioblastoma wanted to stop her from crying. And

From the flavor and construction of this particular memory, the glioblastoma knew that Deirdre was having an emergency C-section, that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. Jared, and now the tumor, was sick with anxiety. Jared,