This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deputy Treaseman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Claire Sustanovic read her story separation

from the April 12, 2021 issue of the magazine.

Sustanovic will publish her debut story collection, Objects of Desire, and June.

Now here's Claire Sustanovic.

Separation.

He asked Kate out at the reservoir where she went skinny dipping in the summer.

Early in the morning, before the kids arrived, or sometimes late at night, when the water was almost black.

She was tolling her hair when he appeared and she wasn't wearing any pants.

Her pubic hair was uncounted.

Kate was taken aback, but she said yes.

As he walked away, she noticed his uncertain footing on the rocks and the spray of eczema,

like something coughed up all over his back and disappearing into his bathing suit.

Already, she had forgotten his name.

When she arrived at the restaurant, white tablecloths, heavy menus, a basket of bread, swaddle to keep warm.

He was wearing enormous glasses.

He stood up and his napkin fell out of his lap.

They ordered the special muscles that left sand between Kate's teeth,

and by the end of dinner, her plate was a pile of empty shells, each one three different shades of glue.

When he took off his glasses to clean the lenses, there was a red mark on either side of his nose.

His name was Nick, and as they undressed in her bedroom that night, his hands starting all over her skin.

...