Now forthcoming from Texas Review Press!

When 39-year-old Grace Deckel has an unplanned pregnancy and miscarriage, her family’s placid suburban life goes off the rails, leading each of them down unexpected paths to reflect on their weaknesses, repair damaged bonds, and transform loss into intimacy. Her husband Chuck suppresses his rage by stealing a rare toy replica of Wonder Woman’s airplane. Teenage son Russell seeks refuge at a summer job in a veterinarian’s office, where a predicted Rapture puts him in charge of the ownerless pets. Younger sister Jess falls in love with an older Bosnian woman, whose physically dangerous performance art challenges Jess to defy her family role as the “Little Scorpion.” And Grace, an anesthesiologist, must investigate both her patient’s death and her parents’ unexplained disappearance before confronting her most urgent problem – whether refusing to have another child is worth the upheaval of her identity, career, and marriage.