“Mother of Men”
Fiction by Lauren Groff, the author of “Fates and Furies” and “The Vaster Wilds”: I saw someone coming toward me through the twilight on the road ahead, a skinny man in a glowing white shirt, and dread rushed into me.
I am seized by terror because an enormous man is coming out of the bathroom into the pitch-black hallway, a man who brushes up close to me on his way to his own bed, pats the crown of my head with his huge hand and murmurs, Mama.