A recent widower and his adult son ferry to a Scottish island in search of puffins. An actress who plays a children's game-show villainess ushers in the New Year with her deadbeat half-brother. And on a trip to a Texas water park with their son, two fathers each confront a personal fear. Following up her 2014 Story Prize winner Thunderstruck, Elizabeth McCracken presents 12 new tales that trace how our closely held desires—for intimacy, atonement, comfort—fare when we show them to the world.