Even on a Friday, Nina felt guilty calling off. She wouldn’t have to improvise a cough on Monday; her fellow technicians recapping their weekends in expenses and well-planned excursions, an occasional raw moment surfacing from the dust. Usually this meant somebody out of place wandered in, caused a ruckus, and migrated back to their designated end. Flagstaff had many corners to facilitate bad habits. “Don’t pick your nose, honey,” Nina instructed her son, both mildly catatonic on the sofa. She’d wanted to have an adventure with Levi that day, take him somewhere new and gauge his expression. Instead, her four-year-old spent a good portion of the morning sleeping before they discussed Shirley over breakfast. The young boy had grown quite fond of his babysitter, championing their endless summer in between bites. Beyond disappointment, Nina felt…

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Addie Voss’s Michael was the one with asthma, but she learned to share it with him.  He wheezed and hacked and she complained about his clogged-up tubes like they were her own.  Looking for relief, the two fled Illinois and headed for sunny Albuquerque, but the desert air gave Michael nosebleeds.  In Redding and Denver, it was the heat or the altitude.  That had been the go-around since they got married in the early ‘90s, nomading it here and there, looking, hoping. Now today, an ordinary Tuesday, Addie was waiting in confusion at San Francisco International for a plane back to Minneapolis, their latest city, where she had left Michael and their four kids a couple days earlier.  For Michael, jobs were plentiful in Minnesota, even if breathing remained a chore.  She guessed other things…

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