I couldn’t stop looking at her. Ever since my mother got pregnant for the second time and my father left, she became sadder, but also much more beautiful. It wasn’t uncommon for me to often feel uncomfortable with some of the short clothes she wore. I was afraid of getting hard and her noticing. Even though sometimes, perhaps, all I needed was for her to know. She divorced my father quickly; I tried to help her however I...

Emily was fifty when the divorce finally went through. Eighteen months later, she still caught herself wondering, “What the hell do I even have left?” Her ex kept the house in West Lake Hills, the Labrador named Ozzy, and—naturally—the twenty-nine-year-old Pilates instructor who loved showing off her brand-new tits on Instagram. Plenty of people told her she had nothing to complain about; after all, she’d walked away with...