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

I'm Debra Triesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear you and Lee, read her story, hello

goodbye, from the November 15th, 2021 issue of the magazine.

Lee is the author of two story collections and four novels, including Where Reasons End

and Must I Go, which was published last year.

She won the Wyndham Campbell Literature Prize in 2020.

Now here's you and Lee.

Hello, goodbye.

Nina helped between her hands baby-shaped air, her left hand supporting an unseen head,

heavy for the supple neck, her right hand patting.

She had read somewhere that an infant found it calming when the mother's patting matched

her heartbeat, guitar, Ethan Guest.

Nina shook her head.

She changed her position so the baby would be upright.

She had recently begun to pay attention to mothers with infants, burping, Katie said,

nursing, Nina blinked ties, and switched back to rocking the air, baby Katie said, infant?

The second word might be easier, Nina waddled around the ottoman, duck, Ethan said,

baby duckling, baby duckling, Katie said, baby duckling, that's what I would call redundancy,

Ethan said.

His voice had a great in quality, like sandpaper, but Katie didn't seem to notice.

Perhaps even the closest sandpaper would leave no damage on a night, smoothed by drinks

...