From Orphan Bachelors, which will be published this month by Grove Press.

Our father’s elder sister arrived with her husband in 1921. We called her Big Aunt. Big Uncle was a twin, but I don’t remember another uncle. My mother explained that in their village, the weaker twin was sacrificed at birth to prevent it from stealing the hei, the life force of the stronger twin.

Big Uncle was gentle and always deferred to Big Aunt. Surely, his family married him to a strong woman to counteract any imbalance. Big Aunt would buy the paper name needed for my…