One day, Cordelia misses the school bus and Monica attempts to keep her from getting bored by showing her a beautiful dress leftover from her first marriage. In “Mojave Rats,” Monica and Elliot live in a trailer in the Mojave Desert with their young daughter, Cordelia, while Elliot works on his PhD. Later she learns that Namecia witnessed her father kill her grandfather and put her mother in a coma. She continues to see her mother and other adults treat Namecia favorably until Maria can’t take it anymore and accuses Namecia of being a murderer. Namecia tells Maria that she killed her grandfather and mother, which Maria believes. Though Maria finds Namecia charismatic, she also resents her. In the first story, “Namecia,” the story’s namesake, Namecia, moves in with her cousin Maria after her mother falls into a coma. Her work previously appeared in The New Yorker, Narrative Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Night at the Fiestas (2017) is a collection of ten short stories by Kirstin Valdez Quade.
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