When they became outlaws they gave themselves new names. He chose Miles Braintree: the first part after Miles Davis, the second after Braintree, the T’s southernmost stop on the Red Line. 

Last spring and summer, I was reading the stories of the Swiss writer Peter Bichsel. I began reading them in Vienna. The little book—a hardcover, but small and lightweight—was a gift

A storm system was lashing North Dakota and Minnesota with snow, snow measured in feet, and was heading southeast, so Kat made the plane reservations in the cab to her Lincoln Park apartment, worried that the airport in Cherry City might close.

I was always happy again when I encountered Anton. He frequented the same café as I, and he, like me, had other things to do between visits—the large garden, the family, he was a man of private means—and as a rule he chose to sit alone at a table and most often only for a short time.

Jeff had a theory about marriage. All it is, he said, and he said he learned this too late, but all it is, is watching someone and having someone watch you. He paced in front of the mute television

Every morning he takes his daughters to school, or, in the summer holidays, to their tennis lessons. It is something he has promised to do. It is a promise he has kept so far.

On Christmas Eve I wandered around my mother’s house looking for things to wrap. For the last three days I’d been slamming doors and doing cocaine and forgetting that it was the season of giving.

Ben enjoys this kind of project—he is a pediatric dentist and likes to be outdoors during his free time. His current enthusiasm is pineapples, which he claims can be grown even in temperate climates. 

I was a difficult little boy, and when my mother’s chronic illnesses made it impossible for her to care for me, she packed me off to her errant ­father, the filmmaker Anton Pavlak.

Kenny paced along the driveway, kicking stones, saying to himself, “Finish your milk, finish your homework, finish your prayers.” Huffing, exhausted, he slowly chanted, “Dol­phins, dragons, pelicans, trampolines