Summary

In “Accidental Transients” the narrator, Dina, is a 29-year-old woman living in her childhood home with her father and brothers in Michigan. She is the eldest and, since her mother left with another man years ago, the only female in the house. Dina has taken over her mother’s household responsibilities for her father and brothers, who do little work. Her younger brother Ibrahim is moving back in with his wife, Dorothy, and this upsets Dina. Her dates are met with rudeness, but her father easily accepts Dorothy into the household. In a flashback, Dina reminisces about her childhood hobby, bird watching. One time, her father brought her to see a Swallow-tailed Kite that accidently found its way onto the property. The bird was considered an accidental transient. Dina considers her father an accidental transient, too. He was transplanted from Palestine when his...