Looking for Robinson Crusoe

by Rebecca Chace

Shipwreck:
But it wasn't.
It was much more mundane, though no less violent.

"Lie like the truth" —Daniel Defoe

Why do I need to circle around and invent when a list of facts could do just as well or better: Or an evening in October, your father dies suddenly of a heart attack. Eight weeks later, you find that the reason your husband has been almost completely absent through this abrupt shock into mourning has not been because of his work. Turns out he has another life in another country and another language. A woman with her own daughter the same age as our youngest. What he doesn't have is an income and apparently he hasn't had one for quite a while now. Turns out he is in love.

This is an excerpt. Please visit our subscriptions page to purchase issues of Fiction.