Motherhood | Teen Ink

Motherhood

August 17, 2010
By _EmC_ BRONZE, Jacksonville, Florida
_EmC_ BRONZE, Jacksonville, Florida
4 articles 0 photos 2 comments

She is lying on the floor, smoking.

“You shouldn’t have said that, you know,” I say, looking at her.

She shrugs and grinds her cigarette into the ground, the ashes scattering into a perfect circle around the lipstick-stained butt.
“Turn the lights on, would you?” I do, and she rolls herself slowly into a sitting position, eyeing me. “You come to lecture me?”
“No.” I sit down next to her. Her body feels strange and forbidden and I can see her skeleton through the leaking folds of flesh on her arms. The cracked strains of a radio hum through the thin walls.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” I say again.
I can see the memory flash through her eyes, the boy punching the door on his heels, the stain of wine from the glass she broke seeping through the tablecloth, blistered words still burning her lips.
“He’s not even my kid,” she tells me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “You’re still his mother.”

She’s rolling another cigarette between her fingers, avoiding my eyes.

“He’s going into the army after graduation.”

“Not college?” I say, and she shrugs as if it doesn’t matter but she won’t look at me.

“It’s his problem,” she says, her voice raw even through the hoarse softness of cigarette-smoked lungs.

There isn’t anything more to say, so I turn the lights off and leave.


The author's comments:
I may be breaking every law of flash fiction with this piece, but at least I'm trying to follow

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 1 comment.


dramakat said...
on Aug. 26 2010 at 4:09 pm
dramakat, Newton, Massachusetts
0 articles 0 photos 7 comments
Beautiful writing, as always.  I am so overwhelmed by the simplicity of this writing, that leads into such an amazing depth.  I love you and your writing.