Claire Boyles is the author of Site Fidelity (Norton, 2021), a collection of short stories from which “Alto Cumulus Standing Lenticulars” is excerpted. Her writing has appeared in VQR, the Kenyon Review, Boulevard, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Colorado.
Ruth knew she was pregnant, but they’d driven the hundred miles from Gabbs to Tonopah anyway, for confirmation, she guessed, or for the change of scenery—though everywhere she looked there was desert and mountains, more desert, more...