'How to Prevent a Breakdown' by Katherine Garrison

Barrelling down I-80 on the way to pick up your sister, you’re wondering if she’s going to give you shit about how you got arrested for punching a guy a few months ago. Her life always looks seamless. You don’t often get to see behind the facade until on this visit you make a spontaneous midnight McDonald’s run where she kicks your tires and says, they’re bald. 

In the parking lot, shovelling fries into your mouths, you tell her I think the man I’m dating might be the one. 

She likes how he treats you with respect. For a while she worried that she’d have to come home one year and prise you from the grasp of some asshole. You’d probably be able to punch someone like that out yourself, though. 

You’re simultaneously offended and flattered. 

She tells you, I’ve been worried about my sister-in-law dying and leaving behind her kids. The ‘all clear’ felt like deflation—in a good way.

Why didn’t you tell me?

She smiles faintly. What could you have done from 3000 miles away? 

She’s right, the only time you’ve directly dealt with death was your grandma when you were ten. There’s nothing you could have done except listen. Obviously, she has other people that fulfil that need for her. You can’t help feeling a little jealous. You’ve always wanted to be closer. But maybe this, right here, right now, is closeness. Your strange brand of it. 

We’ll get them changed tomorrow. You both laugh at how baldness of all things causes potential danger. Some kind of living on the edge. But you agree, and it prevents you from having any sort of breakdown, car or otherwise, on the side of I-80. 

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Katherine Garrison writes short fiction and poetry often exploring themes through nature, food, and the weird. Her work has appeared in foofaraw, Elegant Literature, Baubles from Bones, Superlative Literary Journal, Variety Pack, Wordfire Press, and January House Literary Journal. She was nominated for Best Microfiction 2026. Bluesky: @katherinegarrison.bsky.social