The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

He perches on the broad

promontory,

broods over the hulking jagged

black masses that wait, thirsty, for the blood

of any over-curious traveler.

He watches with a long-glassy orb,

dull but for the kindled life, relic of days slipped by,

glinting within when the sky pours forth fire.

He glowers over the muddy brawling waves,

stark and deserted, like

one of those ancient deities, sitting moldering on a shelf somewhere,

in someone's dusty library.

Zeus, maybe—but his thunderbolts lie rusty and unused,

and he hunches on his mount of slick, weather-beaten

stone, mulling over tumultuous pasts.

Wondering what became of his adorers,

the ones he steered to safety with resonating roar

echoing in its hearer's heart-cavity;

Wondering why, when Olympus trembled under him,

he knew brokenness.

Gods aren't supposed to break.

Wondering why all drifted away—

but for his neighbor, and he didn't matter.

Forever rolling, wrestling, spewing up encrusting,

bitter libations

that stuck in hard places, roughened the skin

and reeked of fish—

All of any worth gone like a hart into trees.

The incessant laugh and growl of the neighbor's heirs

Echoing, spectrally

insignificant, about deaf ears.

Harsh, choking birds tearing at his laurel crown,

a minor annoyance, only.

He keeps his head up firm and proud,

and muses on the past.

Tick

1000 words

Tick

There’s always a clock, solemnly clicking on to your death in the branches of a dead oak tree.

You search for the clock in this endless misty land, the clock that drills into your head with every click. It’s in a different place every time. It comes at 5:07, the only constant here.

A thick atmosphere drags at your body. Abandoned buildings tower around you. Cars sit in orderly lines in the traffic circle and it rains from a blue sky and bird-shaped shadows swoop around you. The rain changes to papers falling straight from the sky like rocks.

A statue stands at the corner of the plaza, barring your way. It’s covered in a stack of papers.

You avoid it.

           

Following the road the other way, you look over your shoulder. The statue stands there looking at you--a pudgy, soft teddy bear, striped in brilliant colors, smiling a little. Its eyes are giant and vacant and they stare different directions. It was not there when you walked down the road.

You dodge through perfect, rigid rows of dead cars, your feet shuffling through piles of medical charts. Maybe inside the hospital that looms ahead you can escape the paper rain.

           

Inside, you trip over an extension cord. Beeping surrounds you, pressing on your body. The statue is sitting on a chair in the corner. It’s holding a digital clock that reads 4:51. You think the statue’s eyes move, but you can never be sure.

The hidden clock ticks. Tick. Tock.

A doctor approaches the bed in the middle of the room. He is a tall man and he holds a clipboard with more medical papers. He leans over the bed and speaks to the person on it. Then he looks at you and holds out the clipboard. You cannot see his face.

For a moment, you stand still. Two, three, four breaths. You listen to your gut, deep inside--the voice that says you’ve done this all before.

You reach out and take the clipboard, your hands shaking. You look down at the scrawl, listen to the doctor’s voice, but you can’t make out any words, written or spoken.

You don’t need to. He’s telling you the cancer has spread. He’s telling you she has two weeks to live.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the doctor chants.

           

You drop the clipboard. The words are like a weight on your shoulders, pulling you down, and you slump forward, grabbing the edges of the bed for support, your eyes closed. The metal rail is thin and hard under your palms. There is not enough air in the room.

Something compels you to open your eyes. You know what will be there, but you can’t avoid it. So you try not to look for too long. She died with her eyes open and no one has closed them yet.

The statue stands by the door, the only way out. You make eye contact and something jolts in your gut. You leave by the other door. Halfway down the corridor, you realize you are still holding the clipboard, but do not stop.

A heavy metal-and-glass door leads to a forest. Here, the ticking of the clock fills reality to bursting. You still have the clipboard in your hands, covered in charts and red lines that fill your head.

The clock is close, and it is closer. You can sense its footsteps behind you.

It already came, you tell yourself. For her. Not for you. For some reason, your insides still quiver.

You find the clock, nestled in the branches of an oak tree with ancient, gnarled roots that cling to the side of a crumbling cliff. The clock hangs suspended over the drop.

The clipboard gets in your way as you start to climb, maddened by the constant ticking. You drop it and try not to watch it as it disappears.

If you look back, the statue will stop moving. You don’t want to see it changing places without moving. You don’t look.

The branches end. Beyond you, they stretch brittle twigs over the abyss. The wind rocks you up and down in thin air. You reach for the clock and brush it with your fingertips as the second hand clicks over. 5:00.

The steady ticking that has haunted you all day stops. Branches creak, the only sound as you sway up and down. Your gut clenches so tightly you have to grab a spray of twigs to stay balanced.

           

It’s there. The statue. You edge away as it begins to climb. It’s covered in copies of the chart that told you your wife had two weeks to live. It scoots up the trunk of the tree toward you in dead silence, its eyes pointed different directions. Medical forms--death certificates--swirl around you.

You scoot farther back, ignoring the crackle of smaller branches as much as you can. The branch can’t hold you much farther.

The branch barely sways as the statue approaches. You can hardly see the statue through the storm of death certificates floating like giant snowflakes around your head. Thick, unreasoning panic settles into your stomach.

You know it’s going to happen, but when the statue’s head thrusts between the papers, so close you could feel its breath, if it were breathing, you scream. The twigs give under your weight and you fall. Time seems to stretch out and the whole motion is centered in your gut, stretching it, twisting it, as you scream without making a sound at the silent statue head looking down, watching you fall through a sea of death certificates. You wonder if you will ever hit the bottom.

Everything goes black. In the blackness, something tugs at you, calling your name, and you wonder if you will wake up.

You wake up in the middle of a city. Empty cars line the pavement in orderly rows. From all around you echoes the ticking of a clock, counting down to 5:07.

Tick.

Tock.

Red Handed

300 words

Red-Handed

Sir,

Operatives “Rory” and “Cheddar” were apprehended last night at 1900 hours. We have provided transcripts of their interviews for your review.

 ****

Rory: Here’s what happened. They left it out. But I’m minding my own; if they catch me, they’ll lock me outside forever and ever. But anyway Cheddar comes in and he’s smelling like poop and dirty laundry and I can’t help checking him out, like do you know how great that stuff is—

Interviewer: Stay focused.

R: Sorry. Anyway he says, “Want it, boy?” and I tell him no but he keeps pushing me and shows his claws and do you know how sharp his claws are? I’m afraid for my life, I met this chick one time, her mother had been—

I: Sir.

R: Oh, sorry, anyway his claws are wicked sharp so I had to do it and—that’s him! The little rascal!

Interview terminated due to subject’s excessive distress.

****

Cheddar: Don’t believe a word. Here’s what happened. The poor kid’s in pain. I mean, real pain. I feel so cruel now, but you know, a little fun never hurt. I walk up to him and I ask does he want it? The kid starts drooling. He can hardly contain himself, right? I’m up on the counter, I don’t quite trust him, and suddenly he jumps! Kid’s got wicked teeth. I’m not sure whether he’s going for me or the burgers, and I jump back about to smack him—self-defense, you know—and then he has the burgers in his mouth and it’s too late.

He’s probably trying to blame me for putting him up to it, isn’t he? It would be just the kind of thing—

****

            Subjects have been detained, pending further evidence. The burgers have not been recovered. Please advise us of the next moves. –Station 38372.

Scorched

Word count: 750

Scorched

I do not have time for this.

The dragon’s leathery wings wrap over its body and my finger; it snarls at me as I try to shake it off. The talons scratch the skin beneath my gold ring. A tiny wisp of smoke wafts up from its nostrils.

“Get off,” I mutter, its body heat scorching my finger. It purrs and clings tighter.

I open the drawer of the till and hold it over it, shaking it a little, closer to the scattering of gold coins in the till.

“You little—” I should be opening the shop doors, not prying a dragon off my finger. Can’t customers be more responsible with what’s in their bags?

It spots the gold in the till and flops into it. Grabbing the nearest coin between its claws, it rolls over and hugs them to its smooth, snakelike belly. A plume of smoke rises from its nostrils.

Just another problem, I think, twisting my ring as I open the shop. Getting the little beastie out of the till at the end of the day will be difficult.

My apprentice does not appear before the supply caravan comes. I snap my account book closed. This shop is more trouble than it’s worth, sometimes.

It takes the whole day to settle the new inventory in the shop, indulge the camel drivers’ trading customs, and get them back on the road. Thankfully, no one comes to the shop. My apprentice still does not appear.

I reenter the shop and groan.

The dragon. Now cat-sized, it sits among the splintered shards of my till, its talons full of gold coins. It looks up and coos as I stop dead in the middle of the floor.

It is angry when I try to pick it up; gold rustles against its belly as it gathers the small pile beneath it. Its teeth have grown appreciably. It sneezes, catching a whiff of the peppercorns I spilled on myself, and a lick of flame darts from its mouth.

I think of my father-in-law, who helped train the battle dragons in his day. He could help me get this thing out of my shop. But it is dark now, and he will be abed. A thought flashes through my mind and I watch the dragon contentedly lower its head to the floor.

I dig out my secret stash of gold, the small bag I keep for emergencies. The dragon’s head pops up as I jingle the coins. It cocks its head like a puppy. Then, like a puppy chasing a bug, it pounces, bounding into the storeroom after the bag of gold, and I close it in and leave it for the night.

The sun rises on the ruin of my life.

The dragon sits in a smoking pile of charred wood and embers, steam rising from its sides into the air. Abandoned buckets lay scattered among the ruins.

            It happened quickly, they tell me. Just before sunup. Someone heard a terrible sound, and a moment later the building was afire. It lasted about an hour, not even enough time to come fetch me.

I should be devastated. I pick my way through the steaming embers and come face-to-face with the dragon.

It growls softly, its teeth half-hidden by the thin cloud of smoke hanging above its head.

“You bastard,” I whisper to it. It looks me in the eye. I would almost swear it smiles. Beneath it lies the small hoard of gold I kept in the shop—all of it. One look at the dragon’s eyes and I know it won’t leave the hoard alone. No way I’m getting that back. It’s almost as large as me, now that it has been sitting on the gold overnight, and I don’t dare approach it closely enough to get my gold back.

Thank goodness that wasn’t everything. I look it in the eye again. It rumbles deep in its throat.

“Keep it,” I say.

The little dragon that started off no bigger than my finger has grown as large as me and ruined my business. I regret the shop a little—my father built it from the ground up when he was my age. But I do not regret it that much. Not enough to rebuild.

The soft, contented growl of the dragon echoes softly off the walls of the buildings as I head down the street toward home. Time to start over. Somewhere new. Somewhere exciting. Somewhere profitable.

Time to start over.

Barnacles

Word Count: 1200

Barnacles

Bailey cursed as the thin edge of the shell bit deep into the side of his hand. Snatching a dirty piece of cloth, he dabbed at the blood that bubbled up. It stung.

Holding the stained cloth to his hand, Bailey sat down heavily on a piling. The endless curve of the ship’s hull, like the soft swell of a shoulder or back, rose high above his head. At his feet, tiny whispers of the highest tide lapped. Shore birds waded in the water, searching for food. A few stood a hundred feet away, washing in and out with the waves, eyeing the slowly growing pile of barnacles and sea debris at Bailey’s feet.

“Whales carry barnacles. They swim just fine.” Bailey squinted up. A few feet above his head, the waterline ended. A crew had removed at least half the barnacles during the week. Now, Saturday, they had dragged him out of his bed and ordered him to continue the job. He picked up his scraper with aching fingers laced with half a dozen other cuts and went back to work.

A light breeze brushed through his hair and fluttered the heavy sheets of canvas hanging above. They’d done a terrible job of furling the sails and the heavy canvas flapped against the side of the boat. The breeze brought the faintest whiff of salt and sea, but also a heavy musty scent of fish and slime. Winter was coming, and the docks, usually teeming with life and encrusted with ships, stretched empty into the harbor.

Bailey’s scraper slipped again; swearing, he flung it down and smashed it beneath the heel of his boot as brilliant red stained his fingers.

At this rate, his hands would still be out of commission and useless for the sails when they headed back to sea next week. If only he were in charge instead of that stupid, half-drunk--

Bailey cut himself off, frowning. “Bloody idiot.”

A few hundred feet away, two figures emerged from the huddle of huts and customs houses on the shore. They had the rolling gait of inveterate seamen who had not recovered their land legs after a week on shore and probably never would. The two of them sauntered side by side down the longest dock and stood at the end, staring out over the rolling water into a horizon flat and empty and endless. The soft movement of the waves carried their words like a piece of driftwood directly to Bailey’s ears as he slumped on his piling.

“We’re really casting off next week?”

“He says we can make it.”

“Do you know what ye need to make the next set of islands, Davis? Fresh water and fair weather! Not grog.”

“The grog is for morale. You of all people ought--”

“What does he think we’re doing, dancing drunk till midnight?”

Bailey gave a little jump as he recognized the resonant voice of the speaker, adapted to carry over the wind in a storm, as the first mate. His partner would be Davis, Captain O’Hara’s clerk. Everything in his body suddenly attuned to the soft noise across the waves.

The first mate spoke again.

“What is the temper of the cabin?”

“It’s hard to tell.”

“Give us an estimate, then.”

Davis dropped his voice and Bailey couldn’t make out the rest. He wobbled on his piling and realized he’d been leaning toward them.

“...five days,” the first mate said, gesturing toward the horizon. A thin bank of clouds was building at the edge of the sea.

“...three days out of port.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.”

“Two days, perhaps.”

Bailey stood as the voices trailed off. Deliberately, he swept the fragments of his scraper to the ground beneath the dry dock. They clinked against rocks covered in dry, stiff sea moss. He walked to the end of the dock, the vast clumsy bulk of the ship rising behind him, and looked out.

“It’s our duty,” the first mate was saying.

“Can you rely on your men?”

“All of them. And you?”

A quiet sound of assent.

“...the winter. I guarantee, once he sobers up, he’ll thank us.”

A handshake. More silence. The first mate reached down and scooped up a handful of water, letting it run out between cupped fingers. A flurry of breeze snatched spray from the tops of the waves, bringing a sudden chill and a heavy smell of rain and lightning that was gone almost before Bailey could identify it. He shivered.

Since he was a boy, he had dreamed of overhearing plans just like this. He had dwelt on the thrill it brought him to imagine saving an entire ship and its crew, defending the captain at all costs from a few desperate mutineers.

Davis and the mate walked back down the dock toward the tiny town. Bailey watched them go, picturing Captain O’Hara. He’d hardly seen the man on the last leg of this voyage--but he’d heard him, wailing mournful sea songs from behind his cabin door late into the night. He’d felt the man’s presence as the ship wallowed in the last storm, tight sails humming in the wind and threatening to break.

Bailey looked up at the bulk of the ship’s hull, discolored and still crusted with patches of barnacles.
He had never sailed under such an incompetent captain before. Yet in all his boyhood fantasies, he had never imagined himself taking the side of the mutineers.

Another gust of wind brought the scent of rain to his nose, and it lingered this time.

He turned back, arms crossed as he headed back up the dock toward his lodging. At the end of the dock, leaning on a cane, stood a tall, bearded figure. Captain O’Hara.

Bailey stopped in his tracks. The captain had not noticed him. The words he had just heard flashed through his brain with white-hot intensity. Then the face of his father, waving farewell from the dock at home.

Take care of him, his father had said.

For the life of him, Bailey did not understand what his father saw in Captain O’Hara, but he trusted him.

Captain O’Hara spotted him and waved his cane. Even at a distance, Bailey could see the brilliant white teeth that split the beard in a smile. He waved back. Maybe the captain knew already. But perhaps he did not. He did not know what the crew was planning. Maybe the man’s life was in danger.

Maybe not.

Bailey put his hands in his pockets and resumed his walk up the dock as casually as he could.

“Ahoy, Bailey! Seaworthy yet?”

“Not yet, sir,” Bailey said, worried his voice would give him away.

“Get her ready! We sail Sunday!”

This close, Bailey could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Sir, I’m not sure--”

“Sunday, Bailey! The next port awaits us. By the way--have you seen Davis?”

Bailey took a deep breath.

“No, sir.”

“Hm. Haven’t been able to find him today.” Captain O’Hara turned and, leaning on his cane, made his way back toward the town.

Bailey bit his tongue and watched him go.

Illicit

Word count: 920

Illicit

When she’d left the apartment, the silent eye contact with her roommate was all they needed—a tacit thanks, just in case. She waited to zip up her tattered suit until she was in the hallway. The less her roommate knew, the better.

Standing in a short alley, she adjusted her dingy cloth mask that itched behind her ears. Her protective suit lay in a crumpled pile against the wall. As she peeled off her second-to-last pair of latex gloves and carefully dropped them into a plastic bag for safekeeping, the cool night air felt toxic and intoxicating.

Behind her, a raccoon quietly rooted through a pile of food scraps in a dumpster. It didn’t even know she was there.

She took a deep breath of air that smelled like sterile fabric and old breath, her boots crunching softly over broken glass as she moved back to the front of the alley and waited.

Hers was a dangerous job. The Conflict had soured the air, leaving lingering traces of chemicals hanging in the air. It was no longer safe to be outside without protection, they were told. Those who did venture out passed each other on opposite sides of the street, heads down, and patrols of policemen in heavy protective gear patrolled the streets. People looked at each other through tightly closed windows—no one could regulate looking—and remembered back through endless days to the time before, when they brushed past one another on the street without a thought, clasping hands and even trading stiff hugs.

People were hungry—so hungry.

She leaned against the wall, hands uncovered in the dangerous air. She could never tell if the tingling on her skin was the air brushing over fine hairs, or wreaths of toxic chemicals slowly killing her. She was hungry, too, perhaps more than the rest of them. Her entire body craved it. Empty, hollow, it waited. The soft scratch of her shirt against her shoulders reminded her how empty she felt, as though her skin were a shell around and empty core waiting to be filled with something warm and life-giving.

Across the street, in a patch of shadow, another figure appeared. He, too, was bare-handed, bare-faced, open to all the silent deadly fury of the open air. A gleam of light glinted off his bald head as he leaned out and acknowledged her with a brief wave, the living brown of his skin a kind of protest.

She waved back, their hands, flickering into the light together, a symbol of solidarity.

She waited for an hour and a half, the emptiness inside pulsing with her breath and heartbeat, as if the craving were a living thing. The breeze across the back of her neck felt like torture. Her stomach was empty, too—they’d spent the last of their money the night before on her roommate’s medication, and the pantry was dangerously empty.

“Hey,” a voice came out of the darkness.

She jumped. How long had she been standing there numb?

“Um…how much?”

She’d heard the question before—someone shy and desperate, uncertain how to ask but ready to risk the patrols for a little contact.

“Twenty for a handshake, a hundred for a minute.”

A shaking hand held out an envelope. Inside, a stack of small bills as big as her hand. Enough for groceries for a week, maybe.

“My mom got sick,” the voice said.

She braced herself, beckoning the owner of the voice, a young woman in the closest homemade approximation of protective gear she’d seen yet, back into the alley. A street down, a siren whooped once and fell silent.

“I haven’t been able to see her since. I’m not sure if she’s—”

They were often like this. Full of their own grief that spilled over when they came. Not that sharing changed anything. Sometimes it made them feel better, though—they had to justify their actions to themselves, or relieve some massive burden.

Satisfied that the patrol was occupied, she beckoned her closer. Touch sent shivers of lightning down her back. The emptiness inside flooded, roiling and bubbling. Breath caught in their throats.

A siren again, closer. Her heart raced. But euphoria rushed through her with the touch of hands on shoulders. They were coming. They would be searching alleys. She could take the money, leave now.

But business had been bad, and in the contact the grief in both their hearts flowed back and forth between them, waking something nearly painful that had been stirring for weeks. Like a hand clenching an electric fence, galvanized solid and unable to free itself, she could not let go.

Tears wet her shoulder and with them fizzed anger, deep and gut-wrenching. It wasn’t their fault that the air was laden with chemicals. It wasn’t their fault that they had to live like this, cut off. She wasn’t even sure it was real. People had to touch, sometime.

She heard the patrol car’s engine starting up as her customer tightened her grip. If a patrol caught you out without protection, there was a fine. Caught out with others—jail time.

Anger seethed. She whispered “they’re coming,” and thickly through tears her customer whispered back “let them come.” So they remained, locked together, filling up, tears trickling as the contact released something long locked up inside.

They remained that way until the first beam of a flashlight shot down the alleyway and the quiet of the deserted night broke beneath the quick, professional footsteps of a patrol.

They Told Me To Write (2 versions)

They Told Me To Write

Jessica M.

They told me to write

Poetry,

That maybe the void in me

Would speak into the darkness,

So I slashed my palm and took my pen

Because it has to be done in blood,

They say,

And in rhyme and meter.

And there are these things called feet

But they aren’t feet

Because in poetry, nothing is what it is,

But all symbols and imagery.

It has to come from a dark place,

They say,

And it must be done in one sitting

Crystallized hard and clear and perfect,

And if it doesn’t reflect the sun

And the stars

And your heart

And your pain

And the bleeding of the world,

It doesn’t count.

But I’m just trying to make it rhyme.



They Told Me To Write (Version 2)

They told me to write

Poetry, so that maybe

The void within me

Would speak in darkness.

So I slash my palm and I

Take my pen and I

Write, because it must

Be done in blood, they say, in

Rhyme and rhythm; when

Words aren’t themselves, it’s

Poetry--nothing is what

It is, but it’s all

Symbols, imagery.

It must come from a dark place

They say, and you race

To write with no stops.

Crystallized, hard, clear, perfect,

Poetry reflects,

Perfectly, the sun

And the stars, your heart, your chains,

The world and its pain,

Or it doesn’t count.

My hand bleeds for a long time,

I must start with rhyme.

Which version did you like better?

I Never Knew

1900 words

I Never Knew

Will you be okay tonight?

I’ll be fine, why wouldn’t I be?

I just don’t want you to be melancholy on your birthday.

You always use the funniest words. Melancholy.

You know what I mean. Call me when you start feeling down.

I’m sitting atop my duvet with a glass of red wine, a blue scrapbook on my lap. Brian left an hour ago, leaving me to wash the dishes in peace. It left me a lot of time to think--to be melancholy.

I’ve just turned thirty, and I’m in the mood for memories. My cat curls up next to my leg, lazily swatting the flicks of sunset light that bounce off the shiny pages as I open the scrapbook. I run my fingers over the sharp edges of the pictures, remembering.

            I open to a grainy old photo. It’s me--skinny, leggy, gap-toothed, my hair in tight pigtails that stick straight out above my ears. I’m clutching a puppy so tightly I can almost see its eyes bugging out. I close my eyes.

****

            I hear his car pulling up in the driveway and I run for the door, eager for him to grab me off my feet and swing me above his head until my wispy hair touches the doorframe. I remember the smell of the sunshine and the hot glare of the pavement outside--it must be July or August. Daddy has his hands behind his back. Suddenly nervous, I stop short.

            “Jamie,” he says, and I hear something in his voice I haven’t heard before. “Jamie--”

            I wait. My mother puts her arms around me from behind. They are cold and her skin is damp from washing. “Jamie,” she says into my ear. “We brought you something. But you have to be very careful with it and take good care of it yourself.”

My father slowly brings his hands out from behind his back. In them sits a squirming puppy, round-bellied and soft, pink skin showing through the fine hair. I open my mouth and squeal so high I stop making noise. I lunge for the puppy and wrap it in my arms, not caring that it squirms. It licks my face and I think I might faint with happiness.      

            My father kneels down, looking straight into my eyes. His eyes are wet as he watches me cuddle the puppy. “Now you’re big enough to have this responsibility. You have to take care of it.”

            “Yes!” I squeal. “She can have a pink collar!”

            Daddy tries to explain to me that Natasha is a boy. But all I remember is Mommy sinking onto the couch, watching us and crying. The sound of her sobs is as real to me as the warm, soft fur on the puppy’s belly. I remember falling asleep that night to soft puppy breaths on my cheek and Mommy’s sobs in the next room.

****

            Before I met Brian, I didn’t know that parents often give their children gifts to cover up the rifts that are growing between them. I never realized that Mom and Dad were moving apart, even then. To me, they were just two proud parents who’d made their little girl very happy.

****

My fingers brush over another picture, bringing back a sharp smell of disinfectant and white tile. People are everywhere--tall, gangly kids in braces and graphic tees and too-short pants, short, childish kids in braces with spiky hair. Puffs of perfume and cologne assault my nose. I hold my two thin spiral notebooks close to my chest, trying to hide the growing sweat stains I feel under my arms, as I search the endless progression of tiny metal plaques for my room number.

            I find it. The teacher is tall and has his hair slicked back, wearing a tee shirt and jeans with sneakers. He smiles at me as I walk in and I feel myself blushing. I smile back and make my way to a desk in the back. Everyone else in the room is head and shoulders taller than me and already talking in small groups. They look at me sideways. I move toward my desk and, like a shark swimming through a shoal of fish, I clear a path through the 6th-grade science class of Room 554, leaving me alone in a pocket with the teacher smiling at everyone but me.

            I drop my books on the floor when I try to put them in my desk and everyone stares at me as I pick them up, hundreds of fish eyes staring right at me, unblinking. They don’t make a sound but I can hear their laughter beneath their unsmiling faces.

****

            I pull out the picture, grimacing, and tuck it away toward the front of the book. Middle school was a difficult time. It was difficult for everyone, I supposed. I always thought that I’d just forgotten my deodorant that day. Before I met Brian, I didn’t know that I must have been experiencing a developmental delay in my growth and coordination.

I pull a picture out of the binding of the album. It must have fallen and gotten tucked away. It shows the perfect summer day, the grass a vivid shade of green.

****

I’m barefoot and I can feel the sponginess of the ground beneath the thick grass. We’re all wearing white and Mommy is holding onto me, trying to keep me from running off and spoiling my dress. She doesn’t have to hold on to me. The dress is the prettiest thing I’ve ever worn and if I stain it, Mommy will be upset. She’s been crying a lot recently and she’s gotten angry too. Natasha sits down a few yards ahead of us and starts pulling at the white ribbon around her collar. I call her back and she comes obediently.

            Mommy has not said a word to Daddy the whole day. She looks like she’s been crying. I don’t want to ask her about it because she spent two hours in the bathroom doing her makeup and if I make her cry again she’ll smudge it. So I don’t ask. Last time, she cried and then she yelled at me. Just a little; she was very upset. I don’t want to upset her--today is our family picture day!

            It’s hard to keep my eyes open because the sun is shining into them. But the photographer is nice and takes a thousand pictures. She gives me a sucker when she’s done.

            “We’re bound to have gotten one nice one,” she says as my parents give her a tip.

It takes forever to walk back to the car. I’m hungry and I wish my parents would hurry. They don’t, though. They just look at the ground when I tell them to hurry up.

            Daddy doesn’t open the car door for me like I’m a princess, bowing and helping me up with his hand. He just opens the door. I get in and buckle myself into my car seat. When I look up, Mommy is crying and there’s a streak of black makeup on her hand.

            “Mommy,” I say softly, waiting for her to get upset at whoever made her cry.

            “Might as well tell her now,” Daddy says. He’s holding the steering wheel with both hands and he doesn’t make vrooming noises when he starts driving.

            Daddy always makes vrooming noises when we pull away. Something is wrong. My stomach hurts and I feel like crying, but I try hard not to. Mommy needs me to listen. Natasha puts her head in my lap.

            “Baby,” Mommy says. “I have to move away. I can’t live with Daddy anymore.”

            For a second I think I might throw up. “Why?” I ask.

            “Daddy has done some very bad things.”

            Daddy’s hands hold tight to the steering wheel. I try not to cry but the tears hurt my throat. They buy me ice cream and I pet Natasha’s head, but it doesn’t help. I’m sick for days. A few days later, Mommy gives me the picture as she kisses me good-bye. It’s the most perfect picture of our family we’ve ever taken.

****

            Mom told me later that Dad cheated on her with a lot of other women. But I never knew that he probably cheated to relieve the stress of raising me while they both worked. I never knew...until I met Brian. It explained so much.

I hold the family picture as I turn the page. I pause over one on the second-to-last page of the album, touching it with my fingertips.

****

I’m standing outside, in front of a cluster of vines loaded with flowers. My hair is blowing in the warm breeze, covering my face. I’m laughing, a corner of a neon sign poking out from behind my head. I’m blissfully unaware of how much that coffee shop will change my life.

I step inside, hit with the warm, grassy smell of coffee and tea and essential oils. My friend heads to the restroom and I study a menu, scrawled in messy chalk calligraphy on a dusty board. I’m frowning over an iced or hot drink when he walks in and sits down at the counter, talking easily with the barista. He’s eye-catching, cute, with thick brown hair and a beard and a ratty, colorful sweater. His smile is a mile wide. My friend comes back and catches me staring and we laugh together, self-consciously smoothing our hair behind our ears.

It doesn’t take long for him to notice us. He orders another coffee and drums his fingertips on the counter while he waits. He winks over his shoulder at us.

As the barista hands him his coffee, her hand bumps the register. A little coffee sloshes out onto his hand. He jerks his hand away and slaps the counter, spitting profanity. My friend looks at me and giggles. “That must have hurt,” she says, swirling her own drink and taking another sip.

When I look back at him, he’s smiling, showing the barista all his teeth as he helps her mop up the puddle. He drops a dollar bill in the tip jar as he walks away.

“Hey,” he says, stopping by our table. “You look like new friends to me.”

He buys another coffee and sits down with us and smiles and laughs and chats. He’s charming, sweet, caring. He asks questions and listens genuinely to us, and he puts us right at our ease. When he leaves, he asks very politely for my number.

****

I pull the picture out of the album and smile at myself. If I’d known I’d meet him when I stepped inside, would I have looked different? Less carefree, more nervous? More relieved?

Meeting Brian has changed me. I hold the picture and look at it as the light fades and my wine gets warm on the table beside me. He helped me talk. He opened up my past. I’d always thought I got away with a pretty good life. But no one really understands how much childhood events affect adult behaviors. I’d thought I had a couple of sad things happen in my life, but I didn’t realize how much they’d really happened to me. How much they really hurt me.

I sigh and put the picture away, a faint shiver going through me.

Call me if you start feeling down, he said.

I run my fingers over the pictures. Their brilliance has faded a little. The feel of them beneath my fingertips fills me with...melancholy. I pick up the phone.

Before I met Brian, I never knew how much I never knew.