Fiction

My arm aches from holding my cellphone to my ear with so many calls from her today. I lean into the armrest. I don’t tell her that I’m also tired, tired of worrying that she will die alone, without me, with only a stranger in a protective suit and an N95 facemask to comfort her.

She wails and screams, “I hate all of you! I wish you would die and go to hell!” and throws hand weights and kicks. She bites and slashes skin. She is autistic. She is intense. I love her.

You send Brian out with a shopping list of 37 Googled home remedies for morning sickness. He returns with the wrong brand of vitamin B6 and no hypnotist.

You could always buy Sprinkles cupcakes if they don’t turn out, but that would cost a fortune. So follow the directions carefully.

His rain-or-shine self-righteousness sends a familiar cold vacuum through my head and chest. In that tundra, I calculate. I cannot defend myself and protect Arthur too.

I don’t tell him of the dream I had, or how when I watch my boys skating with Clair, I see a different pond, one I haven’t been to in years.

There is before and there is after. Nothing else matters some days, but this morning I hear the horses nickering gently to each other in the corral outside my window, waiting for me to get up and feed them.

When Kaye was honest with herself, she would acknowledge that she belonged with this set only as long as she adhered to a scripted role: The bold, no-nonsense Black Mama.

Wasn’t sleep training supposed to last forever? Apparently not. More water, another book, another hug, two trips to the bathroom, more water…At least now they are asleep. Ah, a quiet home. Is there anything holier?

9:05. They’d be 10 to 15 minutes late to Trevor’s preschool at this point, 20 to kindergarten, a more serious crime. But if she swung by the elementary school first and backtracked all the way up Pearl, they’d all be late—including her.

I imagine her beautiful, hair the color of Baltic amber that swizzles past her waist, a laugh that soars to the heavens. She glides through the room, feet barely touching the ground, barely stirring the air.