A sudden rain falls in sheets as we lug our chipped tableware to the Goodwill on Second Avenue. My tank top plasters to my skin. Tomorrow you’ll be gone, crossing three time zones to where another woman waits.
The discovery still stings.
Unsurprising, I suppose - we’d just been playing at domesticity after all, cooking lavish meals in our tiny studio, growing tomatoes on the fire escape. Neither of us expected it to last.
Whatever.
The acceptance letter sits atop my own luggage: law school, here I come.
Little did I know we’d be sharing a home again, decades later.
About the Creator
Aleta Davis
Policy analyst, mother, and aspiring gardener trying a hand at short fiction. On twitter @aleta_rose.
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Alight
“After the mother lays the egg, the father balances it on top of his feet for a full two months, using a pouch on his lower belly to keep it warm. They can’t even leave the egg to eat. In the meantime, the mother goes off to hunt for fish, sometimes traveling up to 50 miles away.”
By Aleta Davis2 years ago in Fiction
The New Echo
Loneliness creaks worse than his bones. He sighs into the darkness. An empty depression beside him and inside him. Sixty years married! That's a lot of memories. Eventually, they'd be a balm, a gentle cup to sip from. Warm, golden, like honey left in the sun, or a smooth liquor.
By L.C. Schäfer6 days ago in Fiction
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