Hey, Professor. Some goddess loves you.
A plastic bag hangs from the door handle. She had to have decided in a second what she would do, snatched the persimmons from the bowl, found a bag for the muffins, scribbled a note, all before jumping on the bike, riding like mad. Did she take the time to grab a coat? Austin stands there in the drizzle, thinking.
Frangible Choices
By Kemari M. Howell
July unleashed a furious calidity as I sat on the side of the road in my overheated, rusty Toyota hatchback, waiting to see if there were two pink lines instead of one. It was the kind of summer that glued clothes to bodies within minutes of the heat's exposure. I could taste the thickness of the air as I inhaled. I'd bought the test as an afterthought; stopping at a drugstore to pee, passing by that aisle of taboo feminine products. I'd thought, maybe I should take a pregnancy test. But I always thought that after he and I had been together, because I liked the idea of taking pregnancy tests. I bought the test, forgetting about my need to urinate until the car started to overheat and I had to pull to the side of the road.
Humidity has a way of enhancing feelings to frenzying degrees. My skin was flushed and my clothes were soggy with sweat as I waited for the steam to stop billowing out from beneath the hood. My bladder reminded me of its needs. I peed on the stick and threw it in the passenger's seat. There were three ice cubes left from the cola I'd bought at a McDonald's a few miles back and I chewed on them to keep me cool. My vehicular irritation boiled beneath my skin but I did my nei kung exercises because Tai Chi is all about inner serenity. The engine cooled in time with my temper. I started the car and reached for my sunglasses. I picked up the pregnancy test instead.
There were already lies between he and I; lies and secrets and things that build indestructible walls between people. I was no longer willing to climb those walls; they were getting too high. There were no illusions that the conception of a child would only lay more bricks on the wall between us, regardless of the decision I might make whether to keep the child. The lies and the secrets were his, and so I turned the car around with a secret of my own; a secret that would be mine alone for the short time I might have to endure it. Because I couldn't have a baby. People who have babies need money. I worked for a palm reader, fishing for information before she took them into her blue-and-gold painted room. She paid me a hundred dollars a week, not enough to feed a baby, not enough to feed myself. If I spent nine months attached to another life, I would never be able to walk away from it. The only option was the one that left a sour, swamp gas feeling in the pit of my stomach. They call it guilt.
Maybe I made the appointment because I knew I couldn't offer a baby any kind of stability. I told myself that, but maybe I made it because some secret part of me hoped that if I erased the evidence, I could go back and find my innocence and naivet?. Maybe I hoped that a barren womb might bring back the irresponsibility of being with him. There were labels now, to he and I; I wanted to erase those labels. He was no longer just a guy. I needed him to be a nameless mistake that I could brush under the carpet. There could be no titles. He couldn't be the Child's Father. I couldn't be the Child's Mother. Because really, how could I be anyone's mother?
In the clinic waiting room, I sat alone with my decision. The receptionist stayed behind the safety of her sliding glass window, answering calls without regard to the swirling tornado of indecision and guilt beyond the glass. The ghosts of choices past hovered in the corners of the room, haunting me. It is the general consensus that a man should share the burden of a child. I did not want to share it. Inside of me, in the secret depths of my female legacy, webs were being spun; threads of silken flesh cocooning itself around an egg. These renovations were not public property; it was my body that would be scoured and scooped. We'd planted a seed together, but I would be doing the landscaping alone.
There was the question of viability, standard procedure you see. I bent knees to chest as two nurses rolled the bulbous transducer probe across the plane of my stomach. They don't tell you that a fetus' heartbeat sounds like a cotton candy machine; they don't tell you that you'll conjure up the sickly sweet taste of sugary cotton and want to vomit. Years later, you'll smell cotton candy and hear that sound, and still the feeling of being violated and gutted will assault you in ways that cripple you.
Rubber-gloved hands were fluttering above my face; gestures of urgency and unexpected portent. Their poker faces were immovable. I felt like a child who couldn't read, listening to adults spell out their plans. Tell me what is wrong, I implored. Because there was fear that something was wrong, even on the table waiting to be pillaged from the inside out. It was ice water through my veins and then one nurse spoke of the wonderment in my belly. And the prayers that were flattened between clenched teeth were set free, answered by a God I didn't realize I'd been praying to; a God I didn't know I believed in until that moment.
In the parking lot, in the rusty old hatchback, I curved my fists over the frangible skin of my belly. Drops of sweat dripped down from my brows, mixing with tears. I licked my lips, the salinity settling itself in my memory, tasting like ocean. Beneath my palm, two seeds were nestled in the lacuna of my femininity, growing into complex beings; sprouting wings that fluttered and sighed against my velvet canal.
In the rearview mirror, I watched my lips form a single word: twins.
Grief Observed
By Laurita Miller https://ringkeeper.blogspot.com/
The morning was washed in grey and dampness crept through every crack in the house. She pulled the sweater tight around her and put the kettle on the stove.
Even as she moved to the window she could hear the wail. It could have been the wind moaning around the harbour but for the raw anguish in it. She lifted the heavy drapes and watched the scene below.
A small group stood on the weathered dock, among them a man, his arms wrapped protectively around a woman, her face partially buried in his chest. The distance made it impossible to distinguish facial features, but body language spoke of fear and sorrow. Two men knelt on the dock, arms stretched toward the dark water. Another stood on the beams below, working a rope through his hands. Others joined them, the curious and the concerned, hands to mouths, eyes cast down upon the waves.
Suddenly the woman cried out, buried her face deeper into her protector's chest, then spun away and lurched toward the edge of the dock. Below them a blue toy boat bobbed on the water.
She let the curtain fall.
My Guardian Demon
By Jeanne Tomlin https://www.jeannetomlin.com
On the warmest afternoon in August, I sold my soul.
The sun shone through the slats of the blinds in dusty bars. Sweat tickled as it ran down my face since I couldn't afford to run up the electric bill by turning on the air. I held the statement from the bursar's office in my hand.
I'd known I wouldn't have the money for the next semester but kept hoping that the money would come in from somewhere-a grant, some unexpected scholarship. Now here it was. Four thousand dollars or I was out on the street with my doctorate only half finished. My transcript would be good for paper training a puppy-if I'd had one.
There had to be something I could do. Anything! I'd been a good girl all my life. Studied. Hardly ever got drunk. Never did drugs. Top grades. Never cheated. Even went to church with my parents whenever I went home. Damn it, this wasn't fair.
I smelled the cigarette smoke and jerked my head up. I didn't smoke. The building didn't allow it anyway. What the ??
A soft chuckle made me leap to my feet. My desk chair skittered away. A man stood in half shadow just inside the closed door of my apartment. I gasped and grabbed my chest as my heart leaped. Then the cigarette gave off an orange light, and I could see his face. It was an unearthly white-blank typewriter-paper white. He was bald and wore round-lens dark sunglasses and had a half-smile on his lips.
I looked around frantically. Textbooks ? stapler ? the stupid bill ... The only possible weapon within
reach was the gooseneck lamp on my desk. When I grabbed it, he chuckled again. The silver bars that dangled from each of his earlobes jiggled, catching the faint light.
He held up a thin hand, palm outward. "It's all right, Mary."
I shuddered. His fingernails were long-more like talons than nails.
"Who are you?"
"You can call me Aza if you like." He took the cigarette from his mouth and smiled exposing pointed, shark-like teeth. His cigarette burned even brighter as he held it between his long fingers, lighting up that entire side of the room.
I gripped the lamp and raised it higher, pretending not to notice its floppy neck. "What do you want?"
He smiled even more broadly. "The Boss sent me to help you out." He nodded toward my desk. "Look at that bill you were worrying over."
I inched my fingers to the piece of paper where I'd dropped it and slid it toward me. Now in bright red letters across it was stamped 'Paid in Full.'
I shook my head. That was impossible. It had to all be a hallucination. I'd better call Psychological Services while I was still officially a student. I reached for my cell phone where it lay next to the pile of textbooks.
"Wait," he said. "You're expecting an important call."
I narrowed my eyes. He didn't want me to make a call, so maybe this wasn't a hallucination after all. A hallucination wouldn't care. "You keep back," I said as my fingers closed around the phone.
He tilted his head, his smile not changing at all. The phone buzzed.
I flipped it open, gaped at the number and pressed the phone eagerly to my ear. "This is Mary."
"Mary, Dr. Shultz here. Great news. The grant came through after all." His voice bubbled with excitement. "You're on! With this new theory on how to use qubits, we'll re-write physics. And you're going to get a share of the credit."
I cleared my throat and managed to swallow. "Dr. Shultz. I don't know what to say. That's-wonderful doesn't cover it."
"I'll expect you in my office a nine tomorrow morning. We have schedules to set up and work to plan."
The phone clicked, and I stared at it in my hand. Lifting my eyes to my visitors face, I shook my head. "I don't understand."
"Like I said, the Boss sent me to help you out. If you like what you've seen so far, I can do much, much more."
"You mean you'll be like ?" My voice broke. My parents would kill me if they found out. What would my colleagues say if they knew? But he had saved my butt or at least my career. I had to find out what else he could do. "Like a guardian demon."
He stuck his cigarette back between his lips and held out his hand. "You could put it that way."
Mirror, Mirror
By Greta Igl https://www.gretaigl.blogspot.com
The girl, perhaps six, chews a strand of dirty brown hair and eyes the doll my daughter holds. Even allowing for fluorescent light and dingy walls, the girl's marginal health is obvious. Her eyes and skin are dull and yellow from poor nutrition, her hair lank and ropy.
"That's a pretty doll," the girl says, her head tilted, assessing.
Sophia hands the doll to her. "You can have it." At three, Sophia still thinks the world is hers to give.
The girl hugs it fiercely. She lets out a satisfied huff and turns her attention back to Sophia.
"What's your name?"
"Sophia."
"Then I'm going to name her Sophia." She tosses the doll into her cart.
The mother in me can't help but ask, "Where's your mom?"
"She's here somewhere." She waves a hand generally around the thrift store, then gestures to her rusted cart. "She's going to buy all this stuff for me."
I admire her treasures: an EZ Bake oven, a chipped glass with a spray of violets, a blush pink cardigan, and now the doll.
"Me and my mom, we come here all the time," the girl tell us. "She lets me pick whatever I want."
Sophia tugs my arm, green eyes wide under those long, long lashes. "Mommy? Can I have a cart, too?"
I smooth a hand over her hair. "Not today, honey. Just pick one thing."
Sophia gives me the fight I expect. "But why, Mommy? That girl gets a cart. Why can't I get one?"
"Not today, honey."
"But I want a cart, too!"
I feel the air leave my lungs. Life is a series of fights these days. Even the hint of one on the horizon defeats me.
"I said, not today." I grip her arm tightly as we break away from the girl and her provocative cart.
Later, Sophia holds her one thing as I strap her into her car seat. She's picked a book, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It's our third version.
Sophia waves the book in my face, hitting my nose with the binding. "Can you read it to me, Mommy?"
The edges of my patience tatter. "Not now, honey!
"But Mommy, I want to read it now." Her voice takes on that stubborn tone.
I adjust the chest strap on her seat, avoid her eyes. "Sophia, I said not now! I have to drive the car!"
She opens her mouth, then stops, frozen.
"Mommy, what's that girl doing?"
I turn. It's the girl from the toy section, now with her mother and grandmother. The mother is thin and wiry hard, the grandmother doughy and unkempt in a stained housedress. The girl screams as her mother drags her by her hair, crab scuttling, to a rusted four door sedan. The mother whips the door open and throws the girl in. As the girl tries to escape, the door nearly slams on her leg. The girl scream-sobs over and over, "I want my doll!"
My heart pounds. I watch the mother grab one kicking leg, shove it in the car. Again. Again. Again. The girl kicks her mother and earns a hard slap on her bare leg. "I want my doll!" she screams again. Again. Again.
"I said get in the goddamn car!"
The girl screams viscerally. She flails, snarls.
The grandmother stands several feet away, watching.
"Mommy," Sophia whispers. "What did that girl do?"
I swallow the burning fire in my gut. We are caught on a thin border, all of us.
"Mommy?" Sophia repeats, louder.
I think of the girl with her cart of toys, her dirty face, her optimistic assurance her mother will buy her whatever she wants. She is kicking the window now. I cringe, imagining one tennis shoe crashing through the window, shredded flesh, glass shards spraying everywhere.
"I don't like this, Mommy." Sophia's voice wavers.
I vacillate with her, wondering what to do. There's a little girl in danger. My own little girl stands at the edge of it. If I interfere?
The options spider web into a million tragic endings.
Across the aisle, car doors slam like gunfire. The engine roars with a rumbling growl. The transmission thunks, then the car reverses blind and fast, before squealing across the lot.
I swallow, knowing my chance to intervene evaporates. Even as my mind fumbles with logistics of license plates and calling the police, the car screeches out onto the highway.
"Why was she like that, Mommy?" Sophia's face crumples and she starts to cry.
"I don't know," I tell her. But, God help me, I do.
The parking lot is quiet now. Sophia still cries, her pudgy hands bunched, scrubbing her eyes. Beyond the trees at the edge of the lot, the river trips past, here then gone. I think of my own ebb and flow of patience. I worry for all of us, the girl and her mother, Sophia and me.
A cardinal sings from somewhere in the branchy throng.
I unbuckle Sophia's car seat and pull her toward me. She melts, warm and pliable, into my arms.
"Let's read that book, honey," I whisper into her hair.
Monday
By Selena Kitt
Susan hid deep in the back of the closet, behind shoes and baskets overflowing with dirty laundry. She buried herself under piles of closet-things, breathing hard into her mother's long dresses. She didn't recognize the voice of the man who'd entered their kitchen that morning, interrupting her cinnamon toast breakfast while her mother, tired but smiling at the other end of the
table, drank coffee from a jelly jar.
Susan had school today and, for once, she was going. Her mother had promised, and had even gotten up to wash a bowl and spoon to make her breakfast. Susan normally ate whatever she could find on Monday morning-a piece of bread, crackers, cookies if she could find them, with water she could get from the tap. The milk jug was still too heavy for her to lift.
She never went to school on Mondays, but today was the holiday party, and her mother kept her promise and grumbled only a little instead of yelling when Susan pushed and prodded her off the couch.
Susan's heart thudded in her chest, her breathing just beginning slow as she strained to hear a sound, anything beyond the walls of the closet. Everything was muffled, like when she held her breath and slipped under the water in the bathtub. Would he hurt her? Susan's breath went away at the thought.
He had filled the kitchen, blocking the sunlight he'd let in when he entered. She could still see her mother's face, drawn and pale, her mouth a thin line at the sight of him in the doorway.
"You owe me," was all he said in that rough voice she didn't know.
Susan knew there would be no school again today when her mother said: "Go to your room, Sue, and don't you dare come out. I mean it or I'll get the belt, I swear I will."
So she went, hiding in the closet behind her mother's clothes. Her own clothes filled the dresser next to the twin bed she and her mother sometimes shared-although more often than not, her mother slept on the couch.
She remembered everything; although she would claim then and years later to her mother she saw nothing.
First, she heard the scream, shrill and fast. Fear kept her there a moment, and then concern for her mother made her creep out of the closet in stockinged feet.
She remembered the smell of cinnamon toast, the feel of the wall on her hand, cool and rough, as she made her way down the hall toward the living room.
She remembered the angle of the doorway to the kitchen; she remembered standing next to the sofa her mother had been asleep on less than an hour ago. Susan could only see their heads as they lay on the faded, dirty linoleum, his face obliterating hers, teeth clenched, eyes closed, one of his hands holding both of hers above her head.