My Mama Says...

by

Rie Sheridan Rose

My Ma says Pa has gone to war...

He kissed her as he closed the door.

I saw the soldiers marching by,

Marching off to fight and die...

My brother John went off last week

Ma cried so hard, she couldn't speak.

I'm all that's left now here at home,

To tend the fields and till the loam.

My Uncle Ted lives up in Maine

Ma says we won't see him again.

I don't know why we have to fight...

But Ma is crying every night.

And now I have to be the man,

So I'll pretend as best I can

That I ain't scared by blood and guns

And mothers burying their sons.

Rie Sheridan Rose multitasks. Her short stories appear in numerous anthologies, including On Fire, Hides the Dark Tower,  and Killing It Softly Vol. 1 and 2. She has authored ten novels, six poetry chapbooks, and lyrics for dozens of songs. More info on www.riewriter.com. She tweets as @RieSheridanRose.

"Auntie ______"

by

Veronica Haunani Fitzhugh

“Where is your father?”

Out with his other woman.

I wait for the commercial break to answer hoping she would distracted forget her question. I turn to her when the ad for our local exterminater flashes across the screen. The bugs make me more uncomfortable than meeting her demanding stare.

“I don’t know…”

My father's other woman makes me call her Auntie ______ when he takes me to visit her pink duplex on that half street no good girls know about. I know about it. I no longer am good. I fear ending up on a half street like Auntie ____.

She buys me a navy blue satin dress with a baby pink bow for my silence and buys my father a suitcase for what I can only guess and fear.

I think I am too old for such a dress, and my father does not move except to work, to her, and then home.

I go through my father's things when he is not home. I smell his slightly starched shirts. I count his socks, all white, in perfect rows in the top drawer that if I am careless will go off its tracks and become stuck. I find the suitcase underneath the bed. Each time, I take it out I find it locked and heavier.

I think my mother knows about Auntie _______ and the suitcase. I am afraid to ask her.

Auntie ____ talks to me about things I don’t understand, but I pretend I do.

Auntie _____ lets me put powder on my freckles and toilet water behind my ears.

My mother does not let me wear make up.

My mother does not let my father do what he wants either.

One day he leaves with Auntie _____ and the suitcase.

I rip all the dress' stitches with the box cutter my father left behind.

My mother takes away the box cutter.

She tries to hold me.

I turn away.

She leaves.

I hold the dark silkiness to my face staining it with missing my father.

Veronica Haunani Fitzhugh earned her BA in English Literature from the University of Virginia but is more proud of the friendships she earned through her social justice work in Charlottesville, Virginia.  She has been in several anthologies online and in print.  Her main blog is Charlottesville Winter at cvillewinter.wordpress.org.