Activity

THE BRINKMANS TAKE TO READING, when they’re alone together. And, together, they’re alone most of the time. Community theater is over; they haven’t acted in a play since the one about the nonexistent baby. They’ve never said out loud to each other that their acting days are over. No dialogue require…

They play three-ball, in rotation. Douglas is beyond pitiful. Four years of scrambling across slash, slag, and mud, stooping and planting, has shot his nervous system, wrecked his bum leg, and left him with a motor tremor that shows up on seismometers down in the Bay Area. Dum and Dee feel almost b…

And a named apple is a patentable apple, as Olivia’s father would tell her. She once fought with him over a case of his. He was helping a transnational company prosecute a farmer who’d saved some of last year’s soybean crop and replanted, without paying royalties again. She was outraged. “You can’t…

Three weeks later, she’s near the same spot, pulling invasive plants. The thick, furry twigs of ailanthus suckers leave her fingers stinking of coffee and peanut butter. She climbs a switchback at a good clip and runs into the two researchers again. They’re several yards up the slope, kneeling by a…

She stands in the clearing at the top of the rise, looking out over a shallow gully. Aspens everywhere, and it boggles her mind that not one of them has grown from seed. All through this part of the West, few aspens have done so in ten thousand years. Long ago, the climate changed, and an aspen’s s…