Summary

In “Home,” when the narrator returns home, she tells Miles about meeting a woman who predicted she would have a baby “for karmic reasons” (55).

The narrator asks the coins why she has had “terrifying dreams since [her] childhood” (56). She feels “cursed by a demon” (56). With the coins’ help, she visualizes the demon as a knife. She compares the situation to “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” (58). She decides “the point is” to overcome the demon by wrestling with it (59). Consulting the coins, she places a kitchen knife near her mirror to remind herself of her intent. She reads “a commentary” suggesting that “Jacob was wrestling with himself” (66).

The narrator asks the coins about relationships, men and women, and dependence.

The narrator’s maternal grandmother Magda “was deported to Auschwitz” when she was 21 (70). Magda met the narrator’s grandfather George in the camp. Years later, after...