Free The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 by Karen Joy Fowler Page B

gardens just a short stroll into the park. Its roots are easily ground into a poultice, and from this can be extracted a violet oil that causes the uterus to contract. Coastal Miwok tribes used it to induce abortions.
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    All this is hard on my husband, but he does not start drinking again. I’m proud of him for that, though I would understand if he did. It would be a sign of how wounding it was to nearly lose me. If he hit the bourbon, I’d know how much he needed me. What he does instead is buy a set of kettlebells. When the kids are asleep, he descends into the basement and swings these things around for hours, listening to podcasts about bow hunting, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Native American folklore.
    He sheds some weight, which troubles me. The pounds really start to fall off.
    He gets the kids to music lessons, martial arts, dental appointments. The problem is school, where a cavalcade of chatty moms loiter away their mornings. There’s the Thursday-morning coffee klatch, the post-drop-off beignets at Reverie Cafe, the book club at Zazie. These moms are single, or single enough. Meet Liddi, mother of twins, famous in Cole Valley for inventing and marketing the dual-mat yoga backpack. She’s without an ounce of fat, but placed upon her A-cup chest is a pair of perfectly pronounced, fully articulated nipples. There’s rocker mom Sabina, heavy into ink and steampunk chic. Octopus tentacles beckon from Sabina’s cleavage. And don’t forget Salima, a UCSF prof who’s fooling nobody by cloaking her D’s under layers of fabric. Salima will not speak of the husband—alive or dead—she left in Lahore.
    â€œHow are you getting by?” they ask my husband.
    â€œLet us know if you need anything,” they offer.
    They give our kids lifts to birthday parties and away games. Their ovens are on perpetual preheat. But it’s Megumi who’s always knocking. It’s Megumi who gets inside the door.
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    Interesting facts: Chuck Norris kills dozens of bad guys at once in
Missing in Action III.
Clint Eastwood takes up the gun again in
Unforgiven.
George Clooney is hauntingly vulnerable in
The Descendants.
Do you know why? Dead wives.
    Interesting fact: One wife that didn’t die was Lady Mary Montagu. My MFA thesis was a collection of linked stories on Lady Montagu’s struggles to succeed as a writer despite her demanding children, famous husband, and painful illness. I didn’t have much to say about the subject. I just thought she was pretty amazing. Not a single person read my thesis, not even the female professor who directed it. Write what you know, that’s what my professor kept telling me. I never listened.
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    One afternoon, I wander deep into Golden Gate Park, beyond the pot dealers on Hippie Hill and the rust-colored conning tower of the de Young Museum. I pass even the buffalo pens. In the wide meadows near the Pacific Ocean, I discover, by chance, my husband and children at the archery range. What are they doing here? How long have they been coming? They have bows drawn and without speaking are solemnly shooting arrows downrange, one after another, into heavy bales. The horse-child draws a recurve, while my daughter shoots Olympic and my son pulls a longbow with his lean and beautiful arms. My husband strains behind a compound, its pulleys and cams creaking under the weight. He has purchased hundreds of arrows, so they rarely pause to retrieve. When the sunset fog rolls in, they fire on faith into a blanket of white. When darkness falls, they place balloons on the targets so they can hear the pop of a well-placed arrow. I have acquired a keen sense of dark trajectories. I stand beside my husband, the power of a full draw bound in his shoulders. I whisper
release
when his aim is perfect. He obeys. I don’t need to walk through the dark with him to see the arrows stacked up yellow in the bull’s eye.
    Later, he doesn’t read books to the