FFP#16 – Holed Up

I haven’t left my house in six months. Some of you might call that agoraphobia, but I call it “Fuck you, world.” I quit my job, cashed out my savings and 401k, and never go anywhere. I order lots of stuff online. Do you realize that almost anything in the world can be delivered? To your front door? And that you can even ask the UPS guy to bring those items inside? I never even have to step out onto the porch. So, anyway, I mostly spend my days shopping online and watching a lot of TV. I’ve decided that morning talk shows suck. The afternoon ones are a teensy bit better. Some days I love Oprah. Some days I hate her, but I think my hate is just rooted in jealousy. Anyway, I’m sure that’s what she would say. “Lara,” she’d also tell me. “You have the power to create your destiny. Negative feelings will only dampen your spirit.” And she’s right, of course. I imagined my destiny to be in this house, enjoying myself, by myself — and I did it! Every day after my morning shower, I dance naked in front of my mirror and enjoy myself. Whatever music is playing on the radio, I dance to it. Naked. Naaaaaked! Last week, I wrote Oprah a letter: Dear Oprah — I’ve learned to embrace my spirit. I learned that if you look at yourself often enough in the nude, then it’s not such a disappointment, not such a heart-stopping shock. If you look at yourself often enough, you wonder how in the world anyone couldn’t love you. Anyway, I think you should do a show naked. I attached a small photograph of me lying on the couch, only wearing a pair of lace gloves I found in a box in the attic. I thought the lace gloves added a touch of femininity. I haven’t heard back yet but that’s okay. I’m living my truth. My only regret is that I never got naked in front of my husband, and now that he’s gone I wish that I had never worn any clothes while he was around. Anyway, I’ve never even had a husband LOL

FFP#15 – Confession of a Bounty Hunter

A series of small explosions erupt around me as I enter the warehouse, setting off an internal organic earthquake, one that shakes my body from the inside out, causing my muscles to contract and my Pelvic Floor Device, an enhancement that creates an invisible, electrical shield over my skin, to activate itself. No matter how hard I try to relax, I just can’t get the PFD to retract.

I should stop, I tell myself. Something’s wrong and I can’t fix it. But a little technical difficulty has never stopped me before. So I run toward the elevator and leap into the shaft, grabbing the steel ropes that extend the length of the empty passageway. Sparks ignite as I climb.

When I reach the second floor, I jump into the room and find myself kneeling before the slender silhouette of my sister. Around her, a cloud of dust and smoke slowly settles. To her right, crates are stacked ceiling-high. To her left, the room stands bare. A window that’s been boarded-up with a plank of splintered wood lets in a weak stream of light. My sister is in full protective gear: miniature capsulated bombs hang from the wide belt that hugs her waist, a black helmet hides her face, tight gloves shield her hands.

“Teresa,” I say, standing up carefully. I haven’t seen her in years and her name feels strange in my mouth. “Teresa.”

She doesn’t flinch.

For some reason, and from some dusty corner of my mind, I remember how beautifully she played the piano when she was younger.

“Teresa,” I say again. “I want to help.”

“Thanks, Sis,” she says. “But I don’t need your kind of help.”

She comes at me then, knocking us both to the ground, her knee digging into my side. But I’m older, more experienced, and with one easy move, I flip her onto her back. Straddling her torso now, holding her down by her wrists, I try to get her to talk, to listen — but she just wants to fight. We should go at it right then and there, get out all of our aggressions, past and present, release the hurt that handicapped our childhoods and fueled our failed adulthoods. She wants to fight, wants to prove to me, to the world, to herself that she’s strong and proud and better than me. But I’m just as stubborn as she is and there’s no way I’m going to let her win.

“You want to fight, baby sister?” I say.

She struggles against my grip, and in the scuffle I pull off one of her gloves. Her bare hand — those fingers haven’t changed much, as long and bony as ever, the nails cut short and buffed to a shine.

“You call that fighting?” she says and laughs. “What? Are you going to pull my hair next, bitch?”

I rip off her mask and we both fall silent. Just like that. There she is. That familiar face. That face so much like mine, yet nothing at all like mine. A new scar decorates her left cheek, thin and winding, a silvery blemish that only makes her more beautiful.

“Get off me!” she yells, finding her voice again, which is almost child-like in its demand.

“Teresa,” I say.

“That’s not my name anymore,” she growls. “We’re nothing anymore.”

She rolls me over, pushing her knees into my chest. Her gloved hand grips my neck, her claws dig into my jaw, pinch at my throat. I try to pry her fingers apart but I can’t.

My eyes water as I fight to breathe. She clenches her free hand — her bare hand — into a tight fist and slams it into my face. But when her flesh touches mine, I feel nothing. Her body shivers violently, flopping away from me like a fish drowning in air.

Electrocuted. The electrical armor that covers and protects my skin, the PFD I’d chosen to equip myself with, the PFD she couldn’t afford, had horribly malfunctioned.

Her mouth contorts, her eyes bulge. I push her convulsing body off mine. Her naked fingers twitch in an uneven rhythm, the tips blackened. A flare falls from her belt and rolls near her head, bursting into flames, setting her hair on fire.

She doesn’t scream, doesn’t make a sound as her tongue pulsates in her mouth. I slap at her hair with my hands, trying to put out the fire, ignoring the searing pain as my fingers and palms burn. “Don’t die,” I hear myself saying. “Please God, don’t let her die.” But it’s too late for my feeble prayers.

#

Long ago, Teresa and I led normal lives and we loved each other as sisters do. But somehow along the way we lost each other. We were no longer sisters, but soldiers, good soldiers, each fighting for a different cause. When peace came, too little, too late, how could we even look at each other? How could we be family again? We were still lost. Left on our own, just trying to survive the best way we knew how, we chose professions that eventually made us gods and forbade us mercy.

It was her job to kill me, my job to hunt her down. We just found each other at the wrong time.

This is what I think about at night. I don’t close my eyes, I can’t. I’d only see her face. Instead, I listen to the rest of the world sleeping and fucking and living.

Would anything have changed if she knew my love was unconditional? Would it have made a difference in her broken mind to know that in an abandoned storehouse in another land, I had kept the shoddy upright piano of our youth?

#

I skip the burial and escape to that faraway place, to the country that harbors one of the last remnants of us. In appearance, the piano hasn’t changed a bit after all these years. I touch a few of the keys, play a song that our father had taught us, try to remember the words but can’t. The piano has been in storage for years and the keys stick, the notes out of tune and sad. The pedals wheeze for relief.

I know what I have to do. I smash the piano to bits. I splinter the wooden panels, let the stained, ivory keys fall to the ground with heavy and toneless clinks. I bury the hammers and strings in the blackest, most worm-infested dirt. I burn the rest of it, but it burns slowly and I’m impatient for its full destruction.

I want to destroy every last remnant of our past. I want to annihilate this guilt and grief before they consume me. I want to do everything I can to forget her.

One day, I will no longer seek absolution. One day, I’ll be able to say, “Yes, I killed my sister. Now there’s nothing left for me to lose.”

“Stain”

On Sunday, my flash fiction piece “Stain” went live at A cappella Zoo. I’m going to count this as my “story of the week.”

She came to life with a port-wine stain on her right cheek. The mark of the devil, said her grandmother. The kiss of God, said her grandfather.

Click here to read the rest

FFP#14 – Yeah

It’s early morning, you’re in the fourth grade, trying to sleep, when you hear a car horn playing the first few measures of “La Cucaracha.” You jump out of bed, don’t even change out of your pajamas, just slip on your sandals and run outside. Here he comes rolling down the street in an oversized, tan Cadillac, slow enough so that you and the rest of your friends can run alongside the car, slapping at the waxed exterior like waves lapping up against the hull of a boat. Sunglasses on, a crisp bandana hiding his pockmarked forehead, he leans heavy on the horn. You wish he’d let you climb into the car, let you honk that horn a few times and impress the world, but he never stops. He drives down the block and keeps on going. He’s like Jesus or something, you think. He’s the king of cool. The king of summer, letting you know the heat is coming, the short nights and full days of baseball and swimming and tree climbing are on their way. Yeah, not one single kid in town needs a calendar to tell them summer is here when the fucking King of Summer himself is back in town.

I wish I wrote that.

The Adventures of Chopped-Off Head Girl by Edith Zimmerman

Just Add Water by Kathryn Kupla

FFP#13 – Invisible Girl

My daughter is invisible. She’s been invisible since birth. At the hospital, I pushed and breathed and pushed some more and when she finally came out I no longer felt any pain. The doctor held up his hands. “Congrats,” he said. “It’s a nothing!”

Even though I couldn’t see her, I could feel her and smell her and this was enough for me to decide that (1) I loved her and (2) she was a girl. I tied ribbons around her wrists and ankles so I would know what was where and which side was up.

Have you ever seen an invisible baby in diapers? So cute!

So there I was: a single mom raising an invisible child. I’d tell you who her father was, if I knew him. He was invisible too and I haven’t felt, heard, or smelled him since I got pregnant. He had issues.

I was more than happy to have an invisible baby girl. When she gets older, I thought to myself, she’ll never look at herself in the mirror and call herself fat or ugly.

Yes, I actually believed this. I should have known that even invisible girls watch TV, read magazines, and pay extra close attention to all the other girls in her class, especially the popular ones, especially in the locker room showers. She was thirteen the first time I heard her soft little voice say, “I feel fat.” And it crushed my heart. I told her not to talk like that, that she didn’t need to live within those cruel constraints of beauty and acceptance, but she just said, “Whatever, Mom.”

Some people ask me what my invisible girl smells like. “Well,” I say. “Imagine you’re making no-bake cookies, you smell some peanut-butter, some cocoa, oatmeal and something sweet. But then when you eat it, when it’s warm and gooey and melts on your tongue and you taste everything at once, that’s what she smells like.”

I guess it’s a smell only a mother would understand.

One evening, my invisible teen-age daughter sat down with me at the kitchen table. I was paying bills, sipping a cup of chamomile tea to settle my stomach.

“Do you like how that tastes?” she asked.

“Not especially,” I said. “But I get gassy whenever I do the bills and the tea helps.”

“Mother, I don’t want to hear about your gas,” she said, probably rolling her eyes. She smelled a little more peanut-buttery tonight.

“Is there something you want to talk about?” I asked.

She cleared her throat but didn’t say anything. I put down my checkbook and pen, and stared in her general direction. “I’m waiting,” I said. “Is this about playing tennis? I’m sorry but I just can’t afford to get you a new racket.”

“No, I don’t care about that. Not really.” She usually didn’t wear anything because she said clothing only made her feel more invisible, but tonight she wore stacks of bracelets on both wrists. She always had them on at home so I could hear her coming and going. The metal bangles clinked lightly together. “I want to talk about me.”

I nodded.

“About being a girl.”

“You mean, about your period?” I asked.

“Mother. No,” she said. “I mean, how did you know I was a girl?”

“The way you smelled. And how you felt in my hands,” I explained, not sure where she was going with this. “The doctor agreed with me.”

“Well, I don’t think that was right,” she said quickly, exhaling the words. “I don’t think I’m a girl.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing what she was suggesting. I tried to be careful with my words then, not wanting to upset her or let her think my feelings for her would change. I knew it was hard enough being invisible. “Oh, do you think you’re a boy? If you do, then that’s great. Really, honey. I’ll support you.”

“No, I’m not a boy either. But I’m not sure. Does it matter? That’s what I want to know. Does it matter if I’m a boy or a girl? I can’t see myself. I’m naked practically all the time except for these bracelets. Am I even human?” She tucked her covered forearms under the table as though embarrassed.

“You came from me, so you’re at least 50% human. I’m pretty sure your father was human too,” I reminded her. “But no, it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl. Do you think it should?”

My invisible child was silent, quiet for so long that I didn’t know if she had left or not. I became still, listening, sniffing the air. “Baby?”

“At night, I dream about my father,” she said. The bracelets appeared again, two coiled cranes rising before me. “I’m walking in the desert and then I run into a man, ‘You can see me?’ he asks, surprised. ‘Tell me what I look like.’ ‘You have gray hair and a wide nose. Dark brown eyes. You’re naked.’ He seems really excited to hear me describe him. ‘You’re naked too,’ he says and he blushes. But I’m not ashamed. He can see me, Mom. He sees me and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. His eyes are focused on me, not looking around or shifting back and forth like he’s trying to guess where I might actually be. He’s looking at me, knows I’m right there, and I suddenly feel like I can do anything. I feel real. But when I ask him to tell me what I look like, he disappears.”

“And then you wake up?”

“Yes, but what if it’s my dad in the dream? What if we’re psychically connected or something? What if he can be seen now and he can help me too?”

“I don’t know where he is,” I said. “And I didn’t know you needed help.” I’m uncomfortable with this conversation, worried that she’s suddenly so interested in her father. It was natural, her curiosity, her desire, but I didn’t like it.

“I want to find him,” she said. “And I want to find out who I am, without doctors or people deciding what I should be. You can’t see me. You can’t know me.”

I thought about all the times she was sick, the evenings we ate ice cream and watched old movies together, the books we’d read each other at night before bedtime, our conversations about school and boys and funny TV shows.

“I love you,” I said to her. “That’s all I know for sure.”

“I don’t want to make you sad,” she said. “Goodnight, Mom.” She hugged me, and it didn’t feel like nothing, it felt like something. Something substantial and meaningful and alive.

“You’re real,” I said. “You’re more real than anything I’ve ever known.”

She went to bed, and I stayed up late drinking coffee, nervous, unable to even write a date on the checks.

The next morning, she was gone. I knew it the moment I awoke. I ran to her room, passed my hands over her bed and blankets. I rolled up her bed sheets and pressed my face into them. Her scent on the sheets and a pile of shiny bracelets on her dresser were all that she left me.

She’s been gone several years now. Sometimes I’ll receive a postcard or letter in the mail, short sentences telling me where she’s been or if she has any new clues about her father. There’s nowhere to send her a reply. Once in a while, I’ll think I smell cookies, no-bake cookies, and I’ll look for her even though I wouldn’t be able to see her if she were really there. So I stand absolutely still, try to let my ears and nose do the seeing for me. “Baby?” I’ll say, but there’s never a reply, the pleasant aroma soon fades, and I find myself hungry, starving, desiring cookies.

In the past year, my life has changed yet again. I’ve married and had a baby. Another girl, but this one is fully visible: hands, fingers, fingernails, feet, toes, cheeks –- I see everything. And I feel guilty because I find it all a little vulgar.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, when the house is too quiet, I make a batch of no-bake cookies. For a little while I can pretend my daughter is back. I’ll eat several at once, knowing that a part of her will always be with me, just like a part of me will always be with her. I don’t think she’ll ever come home, but maybe one morning I’ll wake up to the faint scent of peanut butter, cocoa, and oatmeal and the sound of jewelry jingling. I’ll jump out of bed and take my invisible daughter by her invisible arms and whirl her around. Whirl both of us around so fast that I become a blur, the world becomes a blur, moving so fast that everything becomes visible and invisible and nothing no longer exists.

A cappella Zoo, Issue 4

A cappella Zoo, Spring 2010, is available now and includes my flash fiction piece “Stain.” Order a copy!

“Stain” and four other works from the spring issue were recently reviewed in The Review Review by Vince Corvaia. I appreciate how Corvaia reviews the literature — explaining what works and what didn’t and why. Check it out!

“Finisterre”

My short story “Finisterre” (Strange Horizons, August 10, 2009) made the British Fantasy Awards 2010 Longlist for Best Short Story. (The list is really, REALLY long.) Again, I want to thank whoever recommended it. Thank you!

Six other stories published in SH also made the list, as did Strange Horizons for Best Magazine. Woot!

Tim Pratt, “Another End of the Empire,” June 22

Shweta Narayan, “Charms,” August 24

Tiffani Angus-Bodie, “If Wishes Were Horses,” May 25

Veronica Schanoes, “Lily Glass,” April 27

Eric Gregory, “Salt’s Father,” August 3

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, “The Ghost of Onions,” July 20

Tonight, I decided instead of posting a new story this week, I’d provide a link to “Finisterre,” which just happens to be flash fiction.

Paz watched too much television. I knew this was true when she told me she was a werewolf hunter. The destroyer of werewolves, she liked to say. Prima, she said to me, if you see a man with dilated pupils, a man who smells like mildew, a man with fingernails that are stained yellow and teeth that are uneven and broken, prima, if you see that man—run. Run! Because that man is a pinche werewolf.

Click here to read the rest.

FFP#12 – Elizabeth

During my first year of college, I met several girls who were of the depressive type. They wanted to die, they told me, and for a number of reasons: “I’m stupid.” “I’m fat.” “I’m ugly.” “I’m worthless.” “My mother/father/sister/brother despises me.” These were their refrains. I wanted to tell them to shut up, but I held them instead. I buried them with compliments. I said they were smart, beautiful, easy to love. They melted in my arms.

But they, like everything and everyone else, changed. They declared themselves fabulous, strong, and independent. They became too good for everything. Too good for me. They outgrew me, they said. They no longer loved me in that way, they said. Once they found their self-esteem, I was dumped like bad meat.

#

And then there was Elizabeth. One day, out of the blue, she called and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”

We walked and we walked. She asked about my childhood, where I grew up, what life was like. I shared with her the details of my secret love for insects. She quoted Issa:

And then she said, “I ate fried mealworms once. They tasted like French fries.”

I fell in love with her, right then and there. Right then and there she became my God.

I told her stories about the other girls, the ones who left me.

“What happened to them?” she asked. “Why don’t they talk to you anymore?”

When I couldn’t answer, she walked me to a pay phone near the public library. I gave her their numbers and a roll of quarters that I’d been saving for laundry. She called those girls, three in total, and left them each the same message: “Kill yourself.”

Then we went to see a movie, some romantic comedy about a lonely virgin and an even lonelier hooker.

When it ended, we returned to my dorm room.

This is where I should tell you what her hair felt like against my chest. How her cheeks flushed and her lips swelled pink and full. But I can’t. To have sex with God is an act so traumatic that you just can’t put it into words. And the mind, because you are unable to deal with such divine pleasure, hides the details in some dusty, sleepy, ghost-town deep within your brain. One day, I was told, when the time is right, those details will burst through my mind like a dagger through a heart.

#

Here lies the dagger.

Hard. Soft. Rough. Firm. Tight. Smooth. Damp. Hot. My hands on her hair. My hands on her waist. My hands on her breasts. Her hands on my hips. Her hands on my face. Our fingers finding secret crevices. Our fingers searching every fold. Our fingers everywhere. Legs intertwined. Elbows bent. Toes flexing. My lips on her lips.

Sunlight (or was it moonlight?) beams through the window, illuminating our skin, blessing our bodies. I have to laugh to keep myself from crying. Her eyes were closed but now they open and peer into mine. Her eyes, deep brown and almond shaped, look at me, study me: she sees me how I am, she sees me how I could have been.

I place a hand over her eyes and hold it there.

She places her hands around my neck and keeps them there.

Like this, we fall asleep.

#

I quit school shortly after finding Elizabeth and went to work at KFC. I became the number one fry cook in town. I took pride in my work. Nothing was better than hearing someone say that my fried chicken was the best they’d ever tasted.

Elizabeth stayed in school and we continued seeing each other. She spent almost every night with me.

We celebrated the new year together — just the two of us in my tiny studio apartment. We decided not to make any resolutions, but I had already made one.

“I love you,” I told her as the bells chimed midnight.

She laughed, but it didn’t hurt.

She took a black Sharpie from my desk. “Give me your hand,” she said. “This is my heart.” And she drew a heart — not a realistic one, of course — but a round and curvy heart on the palm of my hand. In the middle of this heart, she drew a stick figure. “And this is you,” she said.

#

Elizabeth and I ate toast with butter every morning. She’d sleep in late, sometimes even missing class. She’d wear one of my T-shirts, lying in bed without the covers on just so I could see her tan legs and smooth butt. I’d bring her a plate of toast and a cup of black coffee.

“There’s nothing better than toast with butter,” she’d say.

I’d let her lick the crumbs from the corner of my mouth as I answered her questions. She could never hear enough about my childhood, about my past. And I couldn’t get enough of her touch. Unlike my parents, Elizabeth and I were always connected. I knew she would never hurt me.

There really is nothing better than toast with butter. And if you don’t believe me, you can go fuck yourself.

#

In late March, we read about Alexa in the school newspaper. This was the girl I’d met in a literature class during my first semester. She was the one who said her parents never loved her. She was found in a park hanging from a tree. A jump rope was tied around her neck.

A few days later, during the evening news, we learned about Angela. She was the girl with the eating disorder. A roommate had found her emaciated body, curled up and spindly like a dead spider, behind a washing machine in the laundry room.

Lindsey showed up in the desert, sitting in her car. She had bled to death from the deep wounds in her wrists. We heard this from some students who were talking too loudly in the campus bookstore. Lindsey had always believed she was stupid, and even I thought she’d never figure out a way to kill herself.

There was nothing beautiful, nothing fabulous, nothing particularly touching about their deaths. Yet, once we were alone, Elizabeth couldn’t stop talking about them. I held her as she cried.

“These are the girls I called,” she said. “I feel like it’s my fault.”

“Why?” I asked. “Did you kill them?”

Elizabeth pulled away from me. “How can you ask me that?” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. She seemed so small, so delicate, sitting on the edge of the bed, shrinking within the thick fabric of her navy blue parka. I wanted to swallow her up, to hide her away from the world, to keep her safe and pure and stuck within my throat so that every time I spoke I would taste her in my mouth.

“Because you’re being silly,” I said. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

“But don’t you feel bad?” she asked. “You used to be friends with them.”

“They only cared about themselves. So, no, I don’t feel bad.”

Elizabeth didn’t say anything.

I thought I’d made her angry, and I didn’t want her to be unhappy with me, so I quickly added, “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about it. Come on, come lie down with me.”

“I have to go.” Elizabeth stood up and walked to the door. She placed a hand on the doorknob and paused there for a moment. “I’m tired,” she said. “I need some time to myself. I’ll call you later. Okay?” And then she left.

#

When I fell asleep that night, I dreamed that I was deep-frying maggots. Elizabeth let me scoop spoonful after spoonful of the greasy insects into her mouth. “I love you,” I told her with each serving. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

#

The next morning, I couldn’t wait to talk to her so I called her as soon as I got dressed. But she didn’t answer and I had to leave a message asking her to please, please, please get in touch with me.

While I waited to hear from her, I couldn’t eat. I didn’t use the bathroom. Hours passed and she never returned my call. I stayed on the couch all day. The telephone, the ringer set to the loudest tone, was on the floor, next to me. I wondered what she could be doing that would keep her from calling me. Once in a while, I’d close my eyes and imagine us together. I found an old shirt of hers that smelled like acacia and lavender and I buried my face in its threadbare material.

Then came the knock on the door.

It was evening and the apartment was now dark except for the glow of the television set. I was cold, so I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders before answering the door. I flipped on the porch light and was disappointed to see two male police officers standing in the doorway. Neither one of them smiled. They asked to enter the apartment.

I was afraid that they were bringing me bad news about Elizabeth.

“Come in,” I said to the police, choking on those two simple words.

They asked me too many questions and showed me graphic pictures of the dead girls. I don’t quite remember what I saw or even what I said. But I do remember asking about Elizabeth. When I asked if she was okay, they looked at each other before reassuring me that she was safe. She wasn’t at her dorm, they said. They could not, would not elaborate.

#

The girls had been dead for quite some time before their bodies were discovered. Missing, then dead, then buried, then dug up and carefully posed. They were found covered in maggots, decomposing, fabulous corpses with rotting smiles.

But none of that matters.

You see, those girls, they didn’t matter to me. They never mattered to anyone. And I can’t feel guilty about what happened to them. They wanted to die. They asked to die. And one way or another they would have killed themselves. In a way, they really did commit suicide.

No, I didn’t kill any of them.

But maybe I did.

No one can argue with the evidence. My lawyer certainly couldn’t. And my mind won’t allow me to remember anything that may have been useful to my defense. There is no dagger, no reason, no resolution. There is nothing except Elizabeth. All that really matters to me now is Elizabeth.

She hasn’t come to visit me. Not yet. But someday she will. You see, this is all a test. I survived the trial, now I only have to pass the test. And when the test ends, Elizabeth will be there, waiting, with her arms open wide and she’ll say, “Let’s go for a walk.” On our walk, I’ll tell her stories about my childhood and she’ll say, “I love you,” and then I will speak in tongues, in a language that only God understands.

FFP#11 – Braids

The grandmother braided the little girl’s black hair into two neat plaits.

“There,” she said. “Look how pretty you are.” She turned her granddaughter around so the child could see herself in the bathroom mirror.

“They’re heavy,” the child said, holding a braid as though she were picking up a worm. Standing on a step stool, she shifted from one foot to the other. “My head feels tight.”

“No, it doesn’t,” the grandmother said. “You look lovely. Neat and clean.”

The girl gave a little hop. The stool beneath her shuddered.

“Stop that.”

“I hate my stupid braids.” The little girl shook her head, whipping the braids around her face. “See. They get in my way.”

The grandmother withdrew a pair of scissors from the cabinet and yanked on the little girl’s hair. With two hard snips, she lopped off both braids. “There,” she said. “Now they’re not in your way.” She placed the two ropes of black hair on the counter.

The child’s eyes widened as she looked from the severed braids to her altered appearance in the mirror.

The grandmother felt flushed and ran her bent fingers through her own hair, which was short and sparse, white tufts that popped out of her scalp like ragged chicken feathers. She glanced at her reflection and was surprised to see such a different woman staring back at her.

She used to have beautiful hair that hung to her waist, just like the child’s, and she had always kept it long, even after it turned white. That is, she had always kept it long until her children brought her home from the hospital, until they decided to cut it all off, to make caring for her easier on themselves.

Yes, she had been bedridden, but only for two weeks.

Only two weeks!

Now here she was, three months later, and her hair still hadn’t grown back.

The little girl laughed.

Outside, the older grandchildren called for the girl. She jumped off the stool and ran from the bathroom. “Look at my hair,” the grandmother could hear her saying. “Look what Grandma did.”

Alone, the grandmother stroked the braids. She held one up against the side of her head. Then she took both braids and hurried to her bedroom, where she found an old shoe box full of receipts in the back of her closet. She emptied it except for a silverfish which scuttled along the bottom of the container, so quick and translucent it was almost invisible.

She folded the braids softly in half to make them fit.

Someday, the grandmother thought to herself, when her granddaughter was much older, she would find this box and her perfectly preserved braids. They’d bring back memories of her childhood. And maybe she’d also remember the grandmother who had cared for her, the old woman who had braided her hair.

The grandmother licked her lips. She was crying, and her tears tasted of stale hope.