The first short story collection by an award-winning writer whose stories reach toward hope when they aren't heading for heartbreak. Lily displays a breathtaking ability to become each one of her characters, to move inside the bodies and minds. Lily's stories deal with the separations we choose to seek (physical and psychological) how the distances we keep determine how we live. Lily's atmospheric, intricate and precise language teaches us how to inhabit her stories and places us with her characters who must choose between longing and necessity as they navigate their sense of place, love, loss and possession.