Author: Chelsea

I had this new dress. It was completely over the top, but I wore it anyway.  I guess I wanted to make a lasting impression. The slinky fabric, the hot pink and lime print, the bell sleeves, a dress no one’s mother had owned, surely.  In the consignment shop on 19^th Avenue, the saleslady slipped it off the mannequin and commented on my excellent taste.

“I’ll take that pale blue suitcase, too,” I said.

The blackberry bushes in the backyard engulf the swing set, now. They will ripen soon. More pies and jam I will fail to make. Last summer, the day I came home from the hospital the third time, I found Lynette at the stove, stirring sugar into berries and hot water.  Miles bought frozen pie shells. The three of us ate pie.

Advice from my dead mother’s playbook: Tears are for clearing dust and tiny insects from your eyes.

Miraculously, I locate a clean pair of underwear and a bra in the bureau.  For weeks, Miles has been coming home to the private moat of dirty laundry on my side of the bed.  He pretends not to notice.

The dress falls cool past my shoulders, over my waist, belly, and thighs.  The chainsaw noise in the living room signals the start of the Indy 500.  Any minute, Miles will come into the bedroom to see if I’ll join him and our daughter, make it a family affair. When she was a colicky baby, the roar of Formula One cars soothed her.

Fifteen years ago, he made his way clear across campus, his gait uneven, and asked if he could borrow the notes for a lecture he’d missed.

“I don’t take notes,” I said.

“But  I see you writing furiously, every class.”

“I’m doodling.”

He gestured over at the student union building, a shipwreck rising out of a concrete sea.  “Good.  I’ll buy the beer, and you can show me your doodles.”

Over beer, I asked, “Why do you limp?”

“Hit by a taxi.” He pointed to the bad hip. “A steel pin’s been holding me together since I was fourteen.”

“Good.”

“How is that good?” His eyes, a field of wild iris back home.

“You’re too handsome, otherwise,” I said.

He moved himself and his Siamese cat into my studio apartment. We cooked, made love. Managed to graduate. Got married. Managed to laugh at things that make most people cry.

“Don’t catch the house on fire,” Miles yells into the kitchen.

Lynette fires back, “A monkey can make Jiffy Pop!”

I hear the scrape of tin on the stove. She’s counting each pop.

Mom goes to the loony bin three times; daughter counts her world. Raisins in a handful. Tiles in the bath. Filaments of a web.

“Are you coming to watch the race?” Miles says through the bedroom door.

I close the suitcase. Toothbrush.  Hairbrush.  A pair of jeans, two pullovers, and three tees, a denim skirt I bought to drive out from Kentucky to California, ten minutes after I turned eighteen.

He joins me at the window and picks up one of the sand dollars lined up on the sill. Curving a calloused finger around the shell’s edge, he says, “That’s quite a dress. You going someplace special?”

His money has always been on the shrinks. Another fiction we maneuver, like the moat of laundry.

“You two are better off,” I say.

He sets down the sand dollar. “I’m going to call Dr. Ames.”

“I’m not going back there, Miles.”

“You don’t get to decide that.” He’s looking at the suitcase on the bed. “You know she’s rooting for Danny Sullivan?” He takes my chin and makes me look at him.

Sullivan is a Kentucky boy.

“Please don’t forget the lemons,” I say.

Miles grips my chin tighter. During a heatwave, when he was building the work shed, I picked lemons. Made the lemonade in an empty coffee can. No walls on the shed yet, just a frame and open air.  Optimal conditions for making a baby, he said.

I pull away. My chin burns, and I hope it doesn’t stop. I need to feel.

“You’ll be back,” he says.

“Close the door behind you, please.”

I put on shoes, makeup. Our daughter watches from the mirror’s edge: Timid smile. Lips pressed shut over lost baby teeth. Pigtails, long tangled hair, short hair, long again, then smooth and shiny as a shampoo commercial actress. In these wallet-size girls, her father’s grey eyes and a conviction to live fully. Her 12^th birthday party at the indoor rink is two weeks away. I will not stand next to Miles, who’s not a drunk and makes the best omelets in San Francisco, while she and her friends slice paths in the ice.

I slip the sand dollar Miles was holding into my purse and pick up my suitcase.

The broken ones get tossed back into the ocean. Lynette’s theory is that they find each other, mate, and form more perfect sand dollars.

“Like people?” I asked.

“No, Mom, they’re shells.”

---

Lee Doyle’s work has appeared in Calyx, Consequence, Nostos, The Healing Muse, Unbroken, and other publications. Her first novel, The Love We All Wait For, won Best Novel at the East of Eden Writers Conference. An audiobook of the novel, newly titled Hearts Crazier Than Mine, will be released this fall. Lee holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University and shares a lair in San Rafael, California, with a black Lab named Jasper. She’s working on her second novel.

 

 

I have something to tell you, my husband says, but I’m not listening. I’m trying to shift the stone lodged in my mountain boot. Rain has slicked the narrow path covered in last year’s crushed leaves and we’re on a steep descent.

More words tumble out of his mouth: didn’t mean anything, didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t think, didn’t blah blah blah.

I watch him speak and wonder how long ago he stopped being the man I love. What I feel is as hard and as true as the stone I cannot dislodge. I raise my arm to shush him, to stem this flow of didn’ts and didn’ts and didn’ts. I have my own list. All the times I didn’t protest when he worked late, the art classes I didn’t take because he didn’t help with the kids, the tedious socializing that helped build his career. Up goes my arm and whoosh go my boots. Treacherous path. Treacherous husband. I slide and slide and collide into boulders, sharp edged branches, stinging nettles. I thump into the bark of a fallen tree. All goes black.

Rewind.

I have something to tell you, my husband says. This time we are settling in for a romantic dinner. I’ve laid the dining table, the one we rarely use, and cooked his favourite meal. It’s my apology for all the nights I’ve been away, all the children’s appointments I’ve forgotten, all the travel I’ve done for my art exhibitions. I’m serving the lamb chops, fragrant with crushed cumin and fennel seed, smiling as I pop open a bottle of champagne, when words tumble out of his mouth: you’re never around, you never want sex anymore, you never appreciate, you never blah blah blah. And when I raise my arm to shush him, to stem this flow of never and never and never, I lose my footing on a slick of wine that I never saw coming. All goes black.

Rewind.

I have something to tell you, my husband-to-be whispers. I’ve snuck out of my sister’s house to make out with him under the majestic elm tree. Tradition says it’s bad luck to see the bride the night before, but we don’t believe in any of that. We’re young and gorgeous and in love, him with cropped hair waxed this way and that, me with my gypsy skirt and flouncy blouse. Great, I say, but I’ve got something to ask you first. And this time, we talk and talk and talk about careers and kids and taking turns. We argue and laugh and cry about all the what ifs that could come our way. We kiss and kiss and kiss into the small hours, until the grass is bent with dew, until the dawn is pinking the sky and we can’t rewind any further.

---

Cole Beauchamp is a queer writer based in London. Her stories have been in the Wigleaf Top 50, nominated for awards and shortlisted for the Bath, Bridport, Oxford and WestWord prizes for flash fiction. She’s also a contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review. Cole lives with her girlfriend and has two children. You can find her on bluesky @nomad-sw18.bsky.social.

We’d been off the main route by ourselves in the Conservation and Marine Science Zone, and you’d been saying how we didn’t want to miss it as back at the main tank there’d be the mermaid show soon, but we’d been lucky arriving there as it was quieter and not as appealing to children, and as it happened the aquarium had set aside a pregnant seahorse for monitoring and I’d been lucky again to get to watch it agog, rocking back in the water, pulsing up its young, but you were looking at your watch, saying there’s loads left to see and we’d be busy with the move the next two weeks so let’s just keep going, we should drink this all in, and I was, and about to point out to you the newborns too, like commas scribbled in the water in white, but you rapped on the glass before I could speak and though it got my attention, it got one of their staff’s too, whose should-know-better glower embarrassed me enough we couldn’t stay, so you lifted my wrist and steered us onto the concourse to sit with the six-year-olds and my point is it wasn’t that I saw how you couldn’t conceal your annoyance the mermaid troupe proved all mermen instead, athletic in their tails and tasteful kelp, and it wasn’t that you saw me watching them, hardly agog but as I was there at least into it, and it wasn’t that I saw you staring at the only female performer, the girl on the beach looking lonely along ‘the sea,’ but perhaps instead because you’d said “Corinne, for God’s sake, you’re in a trance again” but maybe I was thinking about the seahorse again then, moved into its tank because the decision was made it was ready, or maybe I was listening to the announcer calling out the story, that the girl and her merman were from two different worlds and it wasn’t meant to be, or maybe I’d just zoned out from that plot.

---

Stephen J. Bush was born in Bath, England, and lives in Xi’an, China, where he works as a biologist. His fiction can be found or is forthcoming in Bending Genres, BULL, Oyster River Pages, and Panorama.

I was sixteen, finished with school, and couldn’t see a way forward. Went to stay at Uncle Ray’s. He’d been clearing the guttering and had fallen off the roof. Mum and I went down to look after him. They played chess, and binge-watched Breaking Bad. The house was so loud, even with the TV off, the way they shout-laughed and rabbited on. Drank heaps of tequila. Ray said it was pain relief for his busted shoulder. Mum agreed, but she had a busted heart. She was stuck, just enough energy to hold a fag in one hand, drink in the other. I guess Ray was looking after her, too.

Dad called sometimes. Neither of us were chatty. I choked up when I was put on the spot, I guess it was the same for him. It was better when he gave me an iPhone and we began sharing photos.

There was a park down the road from Ray’s; sports fields, carpark, and a steep path up to the ridge where you’re eye level with billowy crowns of massive gum trees. I loved their minty disinfectant smell – I’d sit on the bench, scrolling through photos, hoping it would rinse the smoke stink from my hair. I was never going to puff away like Ray and Mum. She’d started after Dad left. Took up anxiety meds, too. I snuck her pills. They made me feel less tangled, although sometimes my heart wound down so much I’d wondered if it could switch off.

The swamp was near the carpark, and hidden. I only found it because I’d followed a duck across a field and it peeled away into flax bushes. I’d squeezed through and there it was, empties jumbled around the edge, Woody’s boxes flattened to sit on, lighters dropped on greasy strands of grass that lay across the mud like a comb-over.

I took pictures there because I could catch two views at once – the pool of water reflecting trees and sky; and what lay in the ooze underneath. Sometimes the top and bottom views fitted together: a cloud-balloon balanced on an ice-block stick, a flax spike bursting from a squashed can. I sent those to Dad.

That morning, I was sitting on the bench, skimming through photos, when I heard her talking on her phone. She glided into view, then along the path. She reminded me of the head girl at school, ballet dancer, cat-poised, high-achiever. I did not share those qualities. Mum said I stumped along as if I had bricks for shoes. Hadn’t passed an exam since Dad left. I’d been an okay student before, I just couldn’t think properly after that. Cat-girl had almost disappeared around the bend when the sun caught her ponytail’s flyaway hairs and turned them into a fucking halo. For a hot moment, I wanted to smash her. No, I wanted to be her. A kingfisher flashed past. Maybe I dreamt that? They’re so quick. I’ve pinched out photos and seen one perched on a branch – I hadn’t spotted it at the time, but the camera had.

The next day was foggy and the swamp blank. I crouched, and focused on the underneath; the coppery glint of a coin, a yellow blob. Nothing moved. No bird flittered. No leaves drifted. A sliver of sunlight touched the water, and withdrew. It gave me a shivery feeling I couldn’t explain. I shimmied back through the flaxes, and clomped up the path. The bench was wet so I leant against the railing, and pinched out an image. The yellow blob was the head of a face-down Barbie. Her arms and legs had been yanked out. Creepy, but kids experiment. I once set a doll on fire to see what would happen. I’d felt sick watching it sizzle; and at the same time spellbound as it melted into a stump.

A boy found her that afternoon – a boy out walking his dog. The dog had galloped off around the swamp. Elvis couldn’t even bark, the boy said on the news. He just stood there, wheezing. I stared at her ID photo on TV, moon-coloured hair, false lashes that made her eyes look like flowers.

The swamp was barricaded this morning, and a police officer stood nearby. I headed to the carpark, circled back beneath the gum trees, and peered down. A churn of mud around the edge where the police had been – where the attacker had been, and her.

I thought about how I’d missed seeing kingfishers. Had I missed any clues? I scrolled through my photos hoping I’d snapped her gliding down the path. Nope. I might have been the second-to-last person to see her before the boy and the dog; and all I’d done in that moment was hate on her.

I slipped one of Mum’s ciggies from my pocket. I sucked in a lungful then let out the smoke gently; it swallowed my head – that’s the selfie I’d send Dad. For a heartbeat I wanted to shake him fucking arsehole. Wind thrummed in the canopy. Minty, clean-smelling leaves zigzagged down.

---

Leanne Radojkovich’s short story collections Hailman and First fox were published by The Emma Press. Her work has appeared in Best Small Fictions, Landfall, ReadingRoom, Short Fiction Journal, takahē, Turbine|Kapohau, and more. Originally from Kirikiriroa, she now lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand. You can find her online at leanneradojkovich.com.

Doreen forces thick, unwaxed floss between your molars, between your bicuspids and your canines. She is always honest, no messing around, and she needs you to hear this: even two, three times a day, brushing is not enough. There’s inflammation, Doreen says. The floss slices between your two front teeth, and the pain is electric, sharp to your core. You can fix this, Doreen says, but you have to be consistent. Eyes shut behind yellow-tinted safety goggles, you grunt in assent. The floss comes down again, and a section of gum peels away from a tooth. Nice boots, says Doreen. The floss catches behind an old crown placed by an old dentist, and imagining that it will pop right off, fall against your tongue and tumble down your throat, you make a small, concerned noise. Doreen exhales behind her surgical mask. Every night, she says, even if it hurts. You want to tell her how you used to be so good: pre-rinse, whitening toothpaste, fluoride sluiced between your teeth and under your tongue. You read once that the best way to keep from snacking at night is to brush your teeth right after dinner. A clean mouth feels so good, you’ll think twice before ruining it. And you do, you always think at least twice, consistently, but even still: you ruin things. Manicures and photographs, birthday cakes and carpets. Countless opportunities, second chances first through last. Doreen hums, satisfied, and drops the reddened floss on the dental tray. She wants to know, any questions? You swirl water from the plastic cup, you spit. You want to know, can it be possible, please, for the important things to not hurt? But you say, no, thank you. Blood against your tongue, blood between your teeth. Every night, Doreen reminds you. Every night, you agree.

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Carol M. Quinn’s fiction has recently appeared in Five on the Fifth, Grist, The Tusculum Review, and others. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and currently lives in New York with her family.

A surprise spring snow. Enough for the neighborhood kids to get bundled up and mittened, for parents to get out sleds and plastic saucers. Morton watches from the window as they gather at the top of the hill.

The kids slide past, scramble back up to do it again. Morton waves, knows they don’t see him.

He remembers the big snow. Still a record: the forecast said three-to-five inches; two feet fell.

His office, the schools, closed for days. His wife made sausage soup with home-grown carrots and Cubanelle peppers. Morton braved the sidewalk in his gardening boots to get milk and red wine at the corner grocery. Their boy scattered sunflower seeds for sparrows. When the power went out for an evening, they ate doughnuts for dinner and roasted marshmallows over a candle flame.

After the snow settled, packed hard, Morton got the sled from the garage, waxed the runners. At first their boy worried, watched from behind as the other kids left him. “Too fast,” he said. “You can ride on my back,” Morton said. They stayed out until dark.

Inside, the house smelled of spiced apple cider, hot and steaming on the stove. Morton’s wife filled mugs from a ladle, splashed in bourbon after their boy went to bed. They got drunk, fell asleep laughing.

His wife is gone now. A tumor she called “my uninvited guest who stayed too long.” Their boy builds rooftop gardens in cities on the other side of the world.

The day descends to dusk. Morton warms rice for dinner, remembers to stir in saffron like his wife always did, eats watching the news for the weather. They say the snow will last the night, melt away tomorrow.

He opens the window, feels the cold against his face. The kids go faster and faster in the fading light. Their boy will wake soon. He listens to the laughter, leans out and waves again.

---

Scott Ragland has an MFA in Creative Writing (fiction) from UNC Greensboro. Before taking a writing hiatus, he had several stories published, most notably in Writers’ Forum, Beloit Fiction Journal, and The Quarterly. More recently, his flashes have appeared in Ambit, The Common (online), Fiction International, Cherry Tree, CutBank (online), the minnesota review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Cutthroat, Bacopa Literary Review, The MacGuffin, and Allium, among others. He is a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and has served as a flash reader/editorial assistant for CRAFT. He lives in Carrboro, N.C., with his wife Ann, two dogs, and a cat.

I’ve always wondered, Papa—would you be this father if your mother had loved you?

*

I was visiting home after a year. This is how my father and I met, for days or a few weeks at a stretch since I left home for college, which was precisely seven days after my mother’s passing.

Every time we meet, it feels like we are starting over. We talk in pauses, short responses, and fillers, carefully treading around topics like Ma, my career plans, his post-retirement plans, and whether I’m seeing someone.

The silence had grown heavier in our small, overstuffed flat.

My father’s mother (an evil witch, as my mother called her) was coming to stay over.

She had to get some tests done for her ear in the city, my father told me from the kitchen, unwilling to meet my gaze or see my reaction.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine why. My father’s siblings couldn’t be bothered to make these efforts, even though she lived with them and gave them all her love—and everything else she had, including my mother’s gold jewelry, which she took soon after my parents got married.

The next day, I found him obsessively dusting the house.

He didn’t ask me about my investments, but instead asked what snacks I liked to take back with me. He acted like the boys I’d been on dates with, consulting invisible mental index cards.

He has been a good father—he sent me to an expensive school he barely could afford, never commented on my short clothes, bought me a computer in fifth grade before anyone else had one, proudly displayed my silly awards around the house, and occasionally shared stories from his village childhood—stories I wished were more about him than others, but I still cherished them.

He then began wiping the curtain rods in the drawing room. When he asked me about lunch, I lied about meeting a friend.

He didn’t pester me, no follow-up questions either. He wasn’t expecting me to greet his mother, for all I knew, he wouldn’t mind if I abruptly went back on the next flight.

I didn’t know whether to feel grateful for his understanding or betrayed that he sought no support from me.

I wondered if I was wrong in not opposing this. I couldn’t. I didn’t have that power over him anymore. I wasn’t a child who could throw fits. He wanted this familial duty so he could feel like a son. He lacked the lens to see it any other way.

I despised him for having no self-respect. For giving away his hard-earned money after a single phone call from her. For weeping and calling “Ma, Ma…” over and over when he was drunk. All this for a mother who didn’t care enough to visit him after his heart surgery. Who sat laughing over snacks at his wife’s funeral, and said nothing to her grieving granddaughter.

I had not seen him cry once for my mother.

Even when he reached for my phone to explain directions to the cab driver, he didn’t meet my gaze. When I stepped out, he didn’t say bye—just that the cab would be parked outside the block.

When I returned in seconds for my earphones, I saw him lying back on the sofa chair, the wet cloth dropped on his side, staring outside the balcony, as if he had let himself fall back and relax with me gone. He looked like he could finally think. For a moment, I had the urge to shake him out of it, but instead, I turned away and left.

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Garima Chhikara is a fiction writer from Bangalore, India. Her stories explore themes of emotional depth and personal transformation. Her work appears or is upcoming in Forge Literary, Hobart, La Piccioletta Barca, and Halfway Down the Stairs. Find her at garimachhikara.com.