From that day on, my husband’s sister no longer seemed to be so angry that we had gotten married, and she started phoning us all the time

All in all, it had been a fine wedding. Enough to eat, enough to drink. Plenty of cameras

Carl the cremator lived next door—Carl and his big wife, Brenda, who was allergic to the sun, the outdoors, anything at all that required getting off the couch. We would …

The weaving of words: to bear in mind, to bear tidings, to bear down, to be born