A nameless person tells a story of when they had an intimate conversation over dinner with a former schoolmate whom they idealized.

At the root of her complicated family formed by her father and stepmother, a girl faces years of abuse through what they consider to be a “royal beating.”

A woman, living with her husband, is overcome with a strange, inexplicable ailment to her body.

A daughter, on the verge of becoming a mother, learns a great deal in spending time with her own mother.

A mother, her two children, and their stepfather come over to a friend’s for a dinner on Labor Day.

The ex-wife of a famous male writer considers a story he wrote about a neighbor they once had.