Under Her Skin | Flash

Published in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, July-August 2024

Shortlisted in the Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2021

The first thing she does when she wakes is pretend to be asleep. Like a fawn concealed in leaf litter, she tunes into her environment. If the space behind her is empty, she expands her awareness and listens with her whole body. Today, his weight is at her back and she can breathe. There will be no surprises downstairs. No chance her son will get there first and find his father passed out at the counter. No need to rush to normalize the scene.

In the kitchen, the boy adds milk to cereal. 

She presses bread into the toaster, “Let me make you a proper breakfast,” and breaks an egg into a pan.

He is fourteen and doesn’t care. Cereal has two vital things in its favor—ease and immediacy. Bowl, milk, pour, eat.

“Is Dad working today?”

Her husband drinks less when he’s at work and the question is taut with the question beneath it—why will he do for his job the thing he will not do for them?

The toast pops. She flips the egg out and flicks a glance at her son’s face. The disappointment that hoods his eyes ignites her anger with such violence she must grip the counter to keep from running upstairs. A version of herself rips red through the seams of her skin and goes instead, explodes the duvet back and spits: You’re losing him! Her mouth contorts over the imagined words and she angles her back while she wrangles the golem conjured by her rage. 

Busying herself with the trash, she knots the bag over empty bottles and bears it outside. The air is quiet and kind and she pulls it into her body—in for five, out for six—until she is stitched back into her skin.