From Trondheim, which was published last month by Bellevue Literary Press.

On the day their son was going to die, Lil had given herself the task of carrying forty-plus sacks of rubble from their fourth-floor apartment down to the street below.

The rubble came from the closets and partition walls she had knocked out between the kitchen, hall, and sitting room to open up a bigger living space for the family—now a long wide tunnel with bright windows at each end.

“It’s physically impossible,” Alba told her. She meant the number of sacks, the total weight, and all…