Patricia Moeller

Issue 16

Flash Nonfiction

It was 1973, fall or spring, I can’t tell.

But a chill holds close the shades of beige, the color of indecision.

A crease, like a lifeline across its palm, destined to cut the family short, as if time were endless but not enough for them.

My mother, not more than a child, clutches me. My head tilts, pigtails reaching in opposite directions, one towards her heart and the other, the sky, like I’m unable to make a choice, not yet willing to fly but disinclined to crawl back inside. I’m held to her belly expectant like I’ll kick beneath her skin and she’ll wonder if I’m a boy or a girl, if I’ll have blue eyes or brown, if I’ll leave her like she left them.

My mom looks at me. I see him. He lingers in the background. “I will leave,” he says. “I made a mistake.”

Beyond the crease, where he was out of time, Mom and I daydreamed about how I’d push her wheelchair through a retirement home, excusing ourselves as we passed by those too feeble to finish the race or too lost to know which way to go.

But she’s risen from her knees and walked away, her blue jacket fluttering in the wind.

It was fall when she said she loved me.

It was spring when I said she’s gone.