A woman dates a man who doesn't really have time for her. Then she breaks up with him and is comforted by her mother.

An aging missionary mourns the loss of her husband; interferes with another relationship. Intended and unintended consequences. Good intentions and temptations.

The unspoken things between friends.

A man joins a cult and then ultimately reconnects with his father.

A taxi ride; a woman recalls her dangerous past and gradually realizes that the driver was part of it.

Another short story from Li exploring depression, suicide, the (her) loss of two teenage sons. Lilian remembers a time ten years earlier when both her sons were alive; she is a chaperone at her fourth-grade son's weeklong school camp; she observes her son, his friend, and the other children. "If there is a wall between the present and the future it is not for us to pull it down."

An afternoon in the life of a single, perimenopausal, non-parent. Written in the second person.

" When I was four, my mother tried to teach me to swim. She carried me out into a lake, but when she put me in the water I sank. I ended up feeling the bottom with my feet. The water was deep. I saw a bunch of small black dots moving toward me. Tadpoles. I was greedy. I thought I could have them all, and I grabbed and grabbed, but I had nothing to put them in"

A young woman backpacks in China, has a casual relationship with another backpacker she meets, and then, after reading his journal, realizes that he holds menace.

A young man is fired from his job at a university coffee shop. Small businesses, franchises, lies and entitlements.

The bullied -- a korean kid who loves food -- becomes a bully. A story about the choices we make as kids. Throwing stars.

A couple reunite with a friend / roommate in Turkey

A precocious girl from a messed up family first turns to religion and then is corrupted as she discovers the power of acting. I am looking forward to the planned sequel to Crossroads, which this story is excerpted from.

The outline of an ill fated family.

A writer chooses a therapist and worries about her reading his work; abut him reading hers; they make a pact. His general anxieties give way to a real health emergency and he undergoes open heart surgery. Therapy imitates life imitates therapy.

Wow. Intense. A 23 year veteran of the US Navy, Mackin served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of his stories feature animals. In this one, a man undergoes training in preparation for another tour of duty; he re-lives war trauma as he is also dealing with his wife reliving her own terror at the hands of her father.

A young menonite girl, choice, the devil and free will. Cindy read this in parallel, and we talked about it. I wish I'd written notes afterwards.

A man suffering dementia as stream of consciousness. Painful. Dark. Completed it.