Summer of Salt

by Katrina Leno

Neither of us was singing, but both of us were listening intently.

please... fix...

Now I think of him whenever it rains. And sometimes—though I know it’s impossible—it rains whenever I think of him.

the weather was as inconsistent as my own moods. Ups and downs, sun and rain.

Tensions are high qualified for the understatement of the year; just that morning, Liesel Channing had started crying so hard that her contacts washed right out of her eyes.

In a family full of girls, you realize quickly that no girls are ordinary.

“Are you saying all this rain is a consequence of using magic?” “A consequence, a result . . . I’m not sure yet. But it smells like magic, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it’s a fucking man. Men are always killing things.

About how the rains had started the first time I’d cried.

I knew that he would use that gun, because that is what small, scared men did: they used things more powerful than themselves to make up the difference. They hid behind weapons of mass destruction: big guns and bigger bombs.