I really like running outside in the early mornings in Phoenix in the fall. It’s finally cool enough to feel summer is fading and the grueling heat is nearing an end. Even though we won’t see true fall temperatures until closer to Christmas, the promise of relief is there. The desert smells earthy and crisp. Creosote is on the breeze. And there is a stillness that feels restorative. If you ask people who aren’t up in the early hours about fall, they will tell you that it hasn’t arrived yet and lament the lingering heat. “Don’t let the kids buy Halloween costumes with long sleeves or pants!” It’s usually Halloween that finally signals a turn in the weather that everyone can recognize. Until then, the cooler mornings are a bit of a secret lovingly held by those who are up before the sun rises.

I feel similarly about reading submissions. It’s something I am doing with a few other people privy to the secret of what is coming. We know the goodness that awaits the patient and hopeful.

Secrets abound in “Hunger,” by Alyce Miller. Told through the eyes of a child who cannot quite understand the story playing out around her, Miller accurately draws upon the eagerness of a child to know and be a part of everything happening in the home, even when she cannot understand it.

It is when we fully understand the secrets of our family that true innocence is lost, often forever. In “The Woman in the Closet,” by Steph Coelho, another family drama unfolds, but this time, an older child reflects. The teen narrator comes to age not because of an experience she personally has, but because she comes to understand who her mother is and what motivates her mother’s actions. Coelho presents both the profound and heartbreaking in a way most everyone can understand: embarrassment of things our families do differently.

“Strangled” by KC Courtland explores the ways in which our families embarrass us. In two brief scenes, Courtland illustrates one father’s strange humor. As we begin to understand who the narrator truly is, it’s apparent that embarrassment is only part of the story.

Thank you for uncovering the secrets of these stories.