What unites the unlikely protagonists in these very different short stories is their search for refuge. Whether their escape is imagined or tantalizingly out of reach, these characters are crushingly believable and endearingly real in their defenses, their damage, their humor, and their sheer will as they turn suffering into salvation. Full of disappearing children and surfacing secrets, fragile triumphs and imminent loss, these eloquent tales laced with hilarity and grief illuminate shared human truths about betrayal, rescue, the places we seek shelter, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.