Pink by Megan McCord

The basket weave butter cream frosting was exactly what Amanda had asked for, as were the piles of roses and butterflies that made the cake look more like a floral arrangement than something edible.

But the color was all wrong.

RITUALS by Lynn Bey

1.

Our mother calls me to come and look at her. That is how we begin.

“Say something,” she says. She tries to sound petulant, but her image in the full-length mirror makes her smile.

“A sheath,” I offer, cross-legged on the floor. I hold a pillow on my lap despite the heat.

Childless by Eugenie Theall

 

We were seventeen when I paid for my best friend’s

abortion, helped answer the doctor’s questions,