Other Emergencies: Stories

The “other emergencies” experienced by Sarah Freligh’s characters range from mildly disruptive to life-altering. In “All That Water,” a college dropout struggling with addiction forges an unlikely alliance with a bank teller following a botched robbery. In “Aftershocks,” a writer grieving the loss of her support dog is haunted by the memory of what she witnessed on 9/11. In “Happenstance,” two women from different backgrounds form a tenuous connection over the shared experience of their histories. And in “Heaven,” a detective and a high school girl navigate the fraught terrain in the days following a mass shooting in a small town. Ultimately the stories in Other Emergencies revolve around the resilience of people and the capacity for authentic connection in times of great change.