"I was only five when a tiger bit off one of my hands. My mother filled a glove with sand and sewed it to my stump. Every year, she cut the seam with a miniature pair of sewing scissors and stitched on a new glove." So begins "Threads," the first story in this brief collection. The tension that exists in close relationships is mirrored here, whether the story's focus is a group of girls visiting a friend after an accident, a man chewing on gravel,...