[122 words]
When I was ten my mother fell in love with someone who was not my father. I never knew who
it was. It was in the last hour of her beauty, when it shone out golden as a sunset. I remember the
first time she didn’t come home. She got a text and laughed girlishly, and left to get groceries,
even though we had groceries. My brothers and I worried one night she wouldn’t come home at
all, or would slip in the house silent as a shadow, and kiss us goodbye while we were sleeping.
Now I wonder–didn’t she deserve something all her own? Too many times I had seen her bent
over our dishes, her hands in brine, weeping.
Sophia Carroll (she/they) is an analytical chemist and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Rust & Moth, and her Substack, Torpor Chamber. She is currently drafting her second novel. Find her on Twitter @torpor_chamber.
