In this story by Elizabeth McCracken, a ten-year-old boy treated to a Danish holiday, including a visit to Legoland, is unaware that his divorced mother’s real motive for the trip is to reconnect with an ex-partner under the guise of delivering a watch her late father had bequeathed him. Every aspect of the trip is a disappointment as she grapples with her son’s growing intellectual independence and an awkward reunion that fails to give her the closure she was looking for. Themes include grief, memories, lost love, unmet expectations, objects as connections to the past, coping with coming of age.

In this story by Elizabeth McCracken, a homeless woman with no family has spent her life traveling the countryside and staying at the homes of people she says are distant relatives. Now in her eighties, she visits a young couple claiming to be the niece of the man’s great-grandfather. While there, she forms an unlikely attachment to a neglected, undisciplined young boy living nearby. When the truth comes out and it is time for her to leave, she considers taking the boy with her. Themes include homelessness, deception, family, loss, connection.