Frosty Flakes

I ate the Frosty Flakes, dry, out of the box, and listened to the speaker. I wasn’t anywhere near turning into this person who droned on and on about Part D Medicare. Instead, I was on the porch, on a small island, the sun shining, and Dad was still alive-eating Frosted Flaes with sliced bananas-trying to get to the sugar bowl to make it sweeter. No, Dad, I said, like an indulgent schoolmarm. He loved his sweeted and his breakfast and I loved him. I was his caretaker, his daughter, and how far we’d come, the two of us. To this place and to days that started with “Frosty Flakes,” as he called them.

~storySouth, March 25, 2019

Dancing with My Mother

My mother left me for three months with my Aunt Margaret when I was a newborn. She went to San Francisco to meet my father who had survived World War II and the torpedoes shooting at him throughout the Pacific. They never had a real honeymoon, given that my father called my mother one day in 1943 and said, I’m coming home to Indiana and let’s get married. Which they did.

I don’t regret that unremembered time with my Aunt Margaret. She was a lovely woman with a gap between her teeth, .

~Adelaide Literary Magazine, July, 2018

Home

I can only see the top of my daughter’s head from where I sit. She is cuddled up to her furry orange pillow, her hair pulled into a wobbly knot.
“I heard you talking to Alena,” I say.
“Yes.” She tosses on the narrow couch.
“How is she? What’s she doing?” I carefully word my questions. short, and to the point, or there will be no point. I am learning that less is better, but it’s hard.
“She’s great.”

~Literally Stories, January 23, 2018