When the day’s distractions start to slow - that’s when she saunters in and sits at the kitchen counter. She knows that while we moved here for work, and the mountains, we are far from our loved ones.
Distance. When the day’s distractions start to slow - that’s when she saunters in and sits at the kitchen counter. She knows that while we moved here for work, and the mountains, we are far from our loved ones.
Distance.
A presence of an absence.
Looks like I’m back again, she drawls.
“I could really do without your visits.” She ignores this. I consider how to get rid of her. Distraction? Connection? Maybe I’ll call my sister on the East Coast, see how her day went…
She’s two hours ahead, Distance smirks, reading my mind. She’s already getting the kids to sleep. And by the time you wrap up dinner and your kid’s bedtimes…
“She’ll be asleep,” I finish for her.
She nods, her eyes closing in satisfaction.
“Bitch,” I mutter.
It’s not me, she insists, It’s the human capacity to find fault no matter what. You are happy here, right?
I am. “Except…”
Except. Point made, she smiles, stretches her legs like our cat.
“Family is a pretty important factor, though.”
She smiles. I said it, not her. In her mind, she’s won. I turn to put on music, not defeated yet. My mind reaches home and picks 90’s country songs, the ones I can picture playing from a kitchen clock radio. She snarls and fidgets, knowing this could work and get her to leave.
But she doesn’t fully leave tonight. After the first song, she just moves to the corner of the dining room and sits there, drinking an old fashioned next to my great-grandma’s cabinet.
At least I come visit, she says with scorn, Not like that whore Time who can’t be bothered to stop.
“I want more Time and less Distance,” I whine.
Again, with the never satisfied, she scoffs, rolling her eyes.
Sarah Barbo Nielsen is a writer and Army veteran who grew up in Ohio and now lives in Colorado with her family. Her work has been published in Hippocampus, In a Flash, and Ekphrastic Review, and nominated for Best Small Fictions.
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