He was on emergency leave when it happened, home in time for his mother to enter hospice, greeted at the airport by volunteers waving little American flags. I was “home for Christmas,” my meager belongings stored in a CubeSmart storage unit while I figured out my next move. Danny had started stealing my stuff to sell for cash hoping I wouldn’t notice, waiting outside the blood bank for it to open in the morning so he could sell plasma after his latest attempt to get clean failed. I’d gotten a new phone number and deleted all of my socials.
When I ran into Corey, out for a beer at the Inn while his mother slept in a painkiller-induced haze as they all waited for her to go, I remembered the time when I was in first grade and fell and skinned my knee, exposed between schoolgirl skirt and tall socks, and how kindly he’d helped me up, even though most boys his age were throwing rocks or pulling their cats’ tails. I remembered in high school when Bryan from the lacrosse team pretended I smelled bad, wrinkling his nose in exaggerated distaste, and Corey shoved him into a locker and told him to apologize. I remembered when he was back home between deployments and debating signing up again, how he’d asked me how I was doing then listened to my answer, not just waiting for his turn to talk.
All of which is to say, I was not in my right mind at the Inn that evening, having peed on a stick that morning in the tiny upstairs bathroom of my childhood home, the yellow tile walls at least two decades out of date as they closed in on me, remembering how I had woken up to Danny already having sex with me after finding me crashed on the bed after too many drinks at the office holiday party. I was angry and hurt and unsure of what I was going to do when Corey bought me a beer and our fingertips touched when he handed it to me. I didn’t intend to lie to him when I asked him what he was doing later; I only wanted to be held, to find comfort, just as he did.
But now here I am, waiting at the foot of this airport escalator, my daughter’s chubby little fist clutching an American flag, waiting to meet her daddy for the first time. I regret everything and I regret nothing.
Stephanie King is a past winner of the Quarterly West Novella Prize and the Lilith Short Fiction Prize, with stories also appearing in CutBank, Entropy, and Hobart. She received her MFA from Bennington and serves on the board of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference. You can find her online at stephanieking.net or Twitter @stephstephking
Featured Artwork:
Soft grip
Deborah Ajilore is a Nigerian writer and photographer. She is a member of the Frontiers Collective. Her works have been published in Hennepin Review, Mud Season Review, Sapphire Hues Press, Stanchion Magazine, Shallow Tales Review, and elsewhere.