George is in China now, buried there. Or maybe not. Maybe he was cremated, his ashes flung into Beijing smog—I’ll never know. But one thing is certain: this son of New England is not in America.

I’m up because I can’t stay down. I could blame the aspen raking a branch across the window. Or a wounded toy in the next room sending off a distress call of three long beeps. Or my wife, Jacqui, dreaming again of babies swimming inside her like tadpoles—maybe she...

Ten minutes later, behind the locked door, / sitting on top of the closed toilet seat,

The first time I met my husband, he was wearing a single-breasted, peacock-blue suit made of silk. In the khaki and navy blazer culture that was Washington, D.C. at the time, Mario stood out. With his continental name, olive skin, and sartorial flair, many assumed he was Italian. That people were surprised to discover he was Mexican said less about him than it did about their preconceptions, some of which I shared. This was before I’d moved to Mexico, before I’d read The Labyrinth of Solitude, in which Octavio Paz says of the zoot-suit wearing pachuco:

His disguise is a protection, but it also differentiates and isolates him: it both hides him and points him out.