Jess Golden
Jeff brought his little girl to work today because it’s enough of a holiday for school to be closed, but it’s not enough of a holiday for us to stay home too, and it’s harder to concentrate on the paperwork in front of me with this kid running all about, reminding everyone what day it is and what the weather is like—Tuesday and windy—and I’m honestly wishing Jeff would’ve paid for daycare instead of making this a group problem, but I know why he didn’t and it’s because they charge per hour what he earns in that time, so it’s really not his fault, and then Olivia brings me the drawing she made of a horse that looks like a lima bean, down to the shade of green, and it’s just sitting there in front of me, all wobbly lines and extraordinary color, until my chest feels different, feels all wrong in the most breathtaking way, and I can’t stop remembering the way you used to make things like this, back when you were just a little bundle of pasta art and house drawings and greasy bubble wands, when you’d turn yourself into a pile of weight on my ankle while I’d microwave dino nuggets and try to get ready for my shift on time, and my favorite photos of you are still on the fridge, drugstore prints that have been there so long they’re sticky, and in one of them you’re standing on a table, stolen t-shirt art smock rolled up to tiny elbows, all asparkle, glitter glue on your forearms, your cheeks, wearing a smile that could halt planets, and in another you’re leaning over a bowl, turning cake mix and eggs and water and oil into mud with your hands and you look so damn focused, you’re biting your little lip, and I think when I get home I’ll pour a whiskey past the two-finger mark and wrap up in the thickest blanket I can find and look at the sticky photos that have become more penitence than benediction since you pointed out years ago all the knots clumping your misshapen braid, clinging around your ears in a halo, and I still don’t know if I’m right and they’re from perfectly normal little girl chaos or if you’re right and I’d been out a lot and hadn’t remembered to help you comb through them for a while, the kind of thing I try not to think about too much because I believe I was trying my best, and you don’t know what it’s like to stand there alone with so much weight in your arms, to have to fit all the things that make up two whole lives into the same minutes and hours and days as before and to just need a break and a cigarette and a hand running down your back, a voice telling you you’re still perfect, and you’ll probably never know what that feels like since you’ve become the kind of woman who makes so many lists and crosses everything off, the kind of woman who goes to the dentist every six months without fail, the kind of person whose story is her own, and I think I must have done a pretty good job for you to turn out like this, but maybe not because I can’t help but prefer the you that you used to be, when you curled up warm against my collarbone to hide from thunder and called me Mama instead of Carol, before I stopped being able to reach your number, before I could only peer at you through fake accounts, before you stopped letting me tell you I’m sorry.
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Jess Golden is a fiction writer with a preference for flash and a tendency to move around a lot. She currently lives in Germany with her partner. Her stories have appeared in Passages North, Fictive Dream, Maudlin House, Wigleaf’s Top 50, and elsewhere.