101 Words

With gritted teeth, Hannah confirmed she wanted it done. A ding announced a new e-mail. It wasn’t in her inbox, but in Tom’s. The Trojan Horse program allowed her to look there. Curious, Hannah opened the message.

Tom,

Delivery’s confirmed. We’re set for the pitch on Monday. See you at 1:00.

Janice

Hannah’s heart froze. Was this what Janice and Tom were planning? Were they not sneaking around? Frantic, Hannah reopened her last e-mail, trying to stop the hitman.

The message bounced back.

Her heart sank. He’d said he’d delete his account after she confirmed she wanted her philandering husband dead.

That night, at the State Fair, my head throbs; a balloon ready to burst.

“Polio,” doctors say, then send me to the hospital for eighteen days.

All alone on the isolation ward, scared and homesick, I’m wrapped in hot packs sour with sweat. I sleep a lot, don’t eat much.

Days later, I’m allowed a steam-bath. One teen, strapped to a board, is naked, paralyzed. His penis floats like a dead worm. I stare, distressed.

Two neighborhood friends, back home, are now crippled. Pete hobbles around. Patty hauls a steel brace on her right leg.

Everyone says I’m lucky.

I am.

My dad liked to say, “When life gives you lemons, cut a slice and squeeze it in your papercuts. It’s a natural antiseptic.”

He was the practical sort. He never liked putting anything to waste. Whether it was scraping banana peels into a compost bin or flipping Mom’s old art studio into a guest bedroom. My dad could make monuments from the dirt under his nails. He always made something from the scraps that others left behind. That’s why he planted roses over my mom’s grave.

“See?” he said, “Now everyone who comes here might guess how beautiful your mom was.”

The cold she caught from his kiss made every raspy word she spoke revive a fiery itch in her throat, and she wanted to rip out its pink flesh in exchange for a new one; for a new him, too. He was always telling her what to do, what to say, where to go.

She stared at herself—dark cherry nose, swollen plum eyes—in the bathroom mirror.

“Tali, give me your car keys!” he yelled from the hallway.

She rushed to their bedroom, shuffled through her purse, and swallowed a key, hoping its ridges would finally scrape down the pain.

Didn’t know his interest would be piqued as I listed today’s potential menu. Denied so many times. French toast, crackers, grilled cheese. The last got a dramatic eyebrow shift, though lids remained sealed. His body wavered on the edge of existence but stayed upright in defiance of bed alarms. I was afraid to leave him but couldn’t pass up the eyebrows that were so interested.

He sat where I left him.

No words exchanged. I listened content, as his focused grunts cleared the plate of hot, melted, sustenance. For a moment, tumors quieted, and both mother and child rested fully satisfied.

I was seven. He was nine. I ran from him on the playground.

He caught up. “You can kiss me if you want,” he said breathlessly.

I took off.

Nine years later, I stopped running.

Two years after, he slipped his hands in mine as we said our vows. I whispered, “You can kiss me if you want.”

He did.

Thirty years later, on the road to happily ever after, he made a wrong turn.

I thought it was a dead-end.

“Just a detour,” he said, leaning in for a kiss.

It tasted different, somehow…bittersweet, but potent.

He was right.