 Image by Claire Kelly on Unsplash I saw your eyes again, just a glimpse, yet I always catch you in flashes. Sometimes your eyes are blue like your father’s, but that day I saw my own, a fog-draped forest with just a touch of green. A glimmer of what could have been, what is gone, what I can only know in my imagination. When your brother was born, I saw you in his umber eyes. When I caressed his fragile fingers, know that I was caressing yours. When your sister was born, I saw you looking out at me through the hazel line etched around her caramel irises. When I nuzzled her thick, fuzzy auburn hair and kissed her wrinkled forehead, I breathed in your essence with hers. Once at the park, they chased one another, fumbling as toddlers do. I saw you there, dark brown hair tousled around your honeyed face. You just turned twelve. The fall leaves swirled under your feet as you zig-zagged beside them—guiding them away from uneven ground, cushioning their falls. I closed my eyes, grasping at the already fading image, your laughter humming through my memory. When your brother started school and cried every day, you comforted him. You found a picture with all of us in it, and made a necklace from it, one he could wear to school. When the sadness set in, he’d look down to see we were there with him. Do you remember when he filled the school bathroom sink with water and paper towels causing it to overflow? Of course you do. His punishment meant using the nurse’s bathroom, and you were there beside him on those walks of shame. You were twenty-nine when he rode his first motorcycle, but you were on the back, holding his waist, and when he built his first engine, you guided his hands. When he graduated, you clapped the loudest, whistling and cheering even though we were supposed to be silent until the end. Your sister was a little tougher. She didn’t cry when she started school, but you were still there when the teasing began, when the little boys told her she couldn’t t-t-talk. You gave her strength to endure, to walk away. You told her that stuttering was a sign of genius. Because people who bumped, as you called it, had so many creative ideas in their heads at one time that their mouths just simply couldn’t keep up. You were seventeen when she was drawing stick people and thirty when she was composing portraits, but you sat beside her all the way, her muse. And when she attached herself to that boy, old man, old woman, groomer, whoever it was on the other side of the chat, you helped her see that it was a mistake, that she could get hurt, that she deserved better. As she struggled to crawl out of the solitary pit she’d dug, you reached for her hand, hoisting her over the edge back to life. Sometimes, though, I lose sight of you. If the days stretch on without a glimpse, reproach eats at my belly, and I hope you can’t see my shame. I’m afraid of losing you completely. I have no pictures or videos, only my imaginations, but even those images fade, like photos shuffled too many times. I tell myself that it’s a good thing because it’s hard to see you but not have you, not touch you, not hear you. Perhaps I shouldn’t fear because when I do see you, it will be like waking up from a happy dream, and when I don’t see you—when I don’t see you, when I don’t see you—you will become my shadow, like a happy dream I can’t remember. Jenn Martinez-Stefaniak lives in Massachusetts where she spends as much time as possible outside with her family, taking in large doses of the energy and artistry that is God’s Creation. She writes for children and adults, seeking to encourage and inspire her readers by exploring the intersection of faith, nature, and daily life. Her work has appeared in Prime Magazine, Louisiana English Journal, and Nature Friend Magazine. When she’s not writing, she’s hiking with her beloved dogs or visiting faraway places, real and imagined. She can be found on Instagram: @jennmartinezstefaniak
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 Image by Arda Tutkun K I am eight and Daddy tells me it’s time to clean my room. “You have ten minutes,” he says. “For every two minutes you go over, I’m going to cut the head off of one of your stuffed animals.” There is no way he’s serious, I think, but I still hurry to pack away my Littlest Pet Shops. Daddy has taken away my toys before, but never destroyed them. He’s threatened to, but never does. Daddy wouldn’t. And I want to do a good job cleaning. I stack my duct tape wallets in neat piles and begin stacking my paper doll clothes when Daddy walks in, eyes mean and mouth tight. He glances at the scattered paper clothing around me and then trains his eyes on my stuffed animal shelf. My heart skips. “I’m almost done!” I plead. “Everything else is done! I’m trying to put them away nicely!” The closer his hand gets to Moolan, my favorite Webkinz, the louder I yell. “I wasn’t distracted this time!” There’s snot beginning to drip from my nose. “I just had a big mess!” Daddy doesn’t hear me. While I beg, he pulls Moolan down from her shelf and holds her neck between the scissor blades. Daddy looks down at me, then at his watch. “You’ve got one minute.” I can’t tell the paper shirts from the paper pants through my tears. ~ Daddy I know how this works: she cries, I back down, she never learns her lesson. How else will she learn that the world won’t wait for her? That everything you love can disappear? Who else will teach her that nothing is truly hers? Who else will teach her discipline, hierarchy, compassion? How else will she know to parent her kids? She will thank me later, when she can clean her room in under ten minutes. Hopefully she’ll always picture me in the doorway, scissors in hand, reaching for something she loves, the same way I can see my dad perpetually unbuckling his belt in the corner of my eye. This is how I destroy her laziness. This is how I conquer her softness. “You’ve got thirty seconds.” My hands tighten on the scissors. ~ Moolan I wish I could stop her crying. I wish she’d grab my hoof and twirl my stray threads between her fingers like she always does. I wish she’d make me kiss that Clydesdale Webkinz named Peach again. Her fingers are busy trying not to rip the thin cardboard. They resemble real doll clothes now, floppy and wet and fragile because she won’t stop crying over them. It’s a department store’s worth sprawled out in front of her. I’m trying to stay hopeful. I wish I could stop her crying. It’s so loud, her sobbing, her pleading. I wish I could turn my beady eyes away. If I had a spine, I could look our aggressor in the eye. I could beg him to stop her crying. I could beg him not to hurt me. I could beg him not to hurt her. Please don’t hurt her. “You’ve got ten seconds,” vibrates behind me. 10 The guillotine grows closer, I can 9 feel the scissor blades tighten 8 on my neck. Please don’t. 7 She’s looking at me now, wet cardboard 6 held loose in her hands. She knows she’ll never 5 finish in time. She knows it’s all over. 4 So do I. Our eyes shimmer. We’ll meet again 3 on www.webkinz.com. I’m trying 2 to look on the bright side but 1 we both know it’s not the same. 0
 Image by Michal Balog on Unsplash The burner won’t light. She presses the knob, waits for the faint click-click-click, but nothing catches. Just the stale scent of gas. She clicks it off, clicks it back. Nothing. The pot is already filled. Tap water. Slightly cloudy. Half a box of store-brand pasta waits beside it like a promise she can’t quite keep. In the other room, her son arranges plastic soldiers into battle lines. They’re hand-me-downs from a neighbor, chipped and faded. She can hear him narrating the fight in whispers. She clicks the burner again. Nothing. The past week plays on a loop behind her eyes. The pale pink notice folded into the mailbox. The manager’s voice, all polite dread, saying “just one more week.” The food bank closed for inventory. The freezer humming its empty hum. The bruises on her paycheck—hours cut again. She presses the knob harder, as if force will conjure flame. She tries the back burner. A hiss. A faint spark. Then nothing. Her stomach growls and it embarrasses her. She hasn’t eaten since yesterday’s coffee. She keeps thinking about her mother’s kitchen, the one with the yellow walls and the burnt linoleum. Her mother would stand over the stove in her robe, boiling water for rice, chain-smoking, humming along to the radio. When they had food, they cooked. When they didn’t, they made noise so the hunger had company. She never wanted this for him. She opens the window. Gas worries her more than hunger. The night air slips in, heavy and wet with Alabama heat. A mosquito hums by her ear. The window screen has a tear in it. She meant to fix it last summer. From the living room: “Mom? Is dinner ready?” “Almost,” she says, too fast. She crouches beside the cabinet and rifles through it. A dusty jar of peanut butter. A box of crackers, mostly crumbs. A can of peaches with no label and a dent in its side. She turns the can in her hand like it might give her a better answer if she holds it long enough. In the drawer, she finds matches. Her hands shake as she strikes one. The flame jumps, bright and sudden. She leans in and turns the knob again. A whoosh. The burner lights. She exhales. She sets the pot on the flame and watches the water begin to shift. A few lazy bubbles rise to the surface, then vanish. Not a boil yet. Just motion. She leans against the counter, her arms wrapped around herself, as if holding her ribs will keep everything else in place. The flame flickers blue and steady beneath the pot. It’s something. It’s enough. The boy appears in the doorway holding a green soldier with a missing leg. “Can I have some crackers?” “Pasta’s almost ready.” “I’m really hungry.” “I know, baby.” She crouches to meet his eyes. “Can you wait ten minutes?” He thinks about it. Then nods. She watches him walk back to his battlefield, one sock falling down. His shoulder blades sharp under his shirt. He doesn’t know about the envelope on the table. The one that says “Final Notice.” He doesn’t know she skipped lunch so he could have seconds. He only knows the flame is on now. That the water will boil. That dinner is coming. She stirs the pot with the same wooden spoon her mother once used. The handle is worn smooth from years of circling broth, scraping sauce, coaxing something from nothing. She stirs like it matters. Like it always did. The water boils, loud and rolling. She tips in the pasta.
Imager by Clark Tai on Unsplash
I.
I practice late at night with the door locked in a darkened house. I make sure the tub is filling while my parents are doing their own wind down routine—cold cream and Dove bar soap and Letterman booming from the old TV on their old dresser, the cacophonous roar of audience laughter slipping over the sound of running water
I sit and wait on the edge of the porcelain tub, my knees bumped together like two heads pressed in thought, and I count how many hairs are springing up on my legs, thinking about whether running around half naked with pimpled, pockmarked, hairy skin would be the best thing for my psyche
Once in the tub, I sit on my knees and see the same legs are now distorted in the sloshing miniature waves like I’ve been a wound cut open and my flesh is the blood dispersing in water—no lines or boundaries to hold me in, only the melting molecules of an idea.
I dip my face in and count my breaths and every few Mississippis, I pull it out to the side just long enough for one sharp inhale before going back under. I time it and I time it and I time it until wet hair falls in my eyes and fills my nostrils and clamors its way inside the corners of my mouth like a tentacled haunting from the drain, and I convince myself that I am ready.
II.
At the swim team tryouts, I never make it off the bleachers. I watch the other girls dive in and pulse and propel their way through the lanes. Their arms cut and glide through the teal water like fins, mouths open like gawking trout to suck in oxygen before they submerge again. That’s where I went wrong, I think. I used my nose. This nose that stalls and spurts in the blooming seasons and wakes me in fits of sneezes. How could I rely on it for essential support while in the water?
The girls time themselves perfectly, one after the other, like a dotted line of mythic water beasts, slick flesh with pearled droplets rolling off bony shoulders and long legs, not a hair or peach fuzz in sight. When the coach calls my name, I pretend it is not me and when she turns around, clipboard in hand, I pull the towel closer around my shoulders and get up to slink away unnoticed.
III.
I never tell my parents I tried out for the swim team and when they find out my best friend makes the cut, they hug her and say things like well done, Katie and that’s impressive. My mom turns to me, spatula in hand, asking why I never tried out and wondering out loud if this is the start of our conjoined, braided, co-dependent friendship splintering—if we would at long last be finding our own hobbies.
I feel a crack inside my chest when Katie laughs but doesn’t respond with something like no way and the crack grows into a gorge when my dad adds it will be healthy for you girls, you know?
That night, I once more have my ear pressed to the door like a conch shell to catch the waves of a live audience roar drifting through. I tiptoe into the bathroom and lock the door behind me. I sit on the edge of the tub, knees clinked together like buoys in lazy waters, and I wait for the tub to shapeshift into a great lake or ocean. I climb in carefully and sit on my knees, laying parallel over the surface like a diving board waiting to spring. I catch a breath and hold it tight, a bubble of compressed wishes I push deeper towards my belly and plant like a seed. And when my face melts into the water, I count the Mississippis again before lifting my head up off to the side, this time opening my mouth, exhaling, inhaling again, and going right back under.
 Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash We wait in the driveway for the bus, my daughter crunching woodsmoke-scented leaves to pass the time. I’m an excellent mother, if the definitive parenting sites can be believed. Limited screen time, multiple bedtime stories, junk food only on special occasions, no exposure to unpleasantness, etc. But I’m bored, and leaf-crunching isn’t going to cut it. I teach my preschooler a catchphrase from my favorite decade, although introducing one’s child to snark is probably against the rules. “As if,” she repeats, cocking her head. I know I’ll regret my decision in a day or two when she’s echoed the words ad nauseam, but at this moment she’s perfectly adorable, trying hard (and failing) to get the intonation just right. It’s excellent fodder for the kind of mother who records her child’s every move and sets up a highly lucrative YouTube channel. Which I am not. Seriously, though, this show is payment worthy. “As if, as if, as if,” my offspring shrieks, running back and forth from the garage door to the curb, leaving golden baby tornadoes in her wake. As if she doesn’t have a care in the world, other than ensuring adequate time in the jumping around room. As it should be, my inner voice opines in a self-congratulatory tone. A mango-hued conveyance finally arrives. I hand my mini-me off to the driver with an apologetic smile and a warning that she may be insufferable on the journey. That night, after bath and books, we lie like nesting commas on her turquoise and lavender comforter, her uncategorizable eyes wide shut, her breathing soft and even. Without warning, her right arm claims my neck in an inexorable chokehold. As if I’ve been conned by a four-year-old. As if she’s known forever how quickly she can lose me. As if she’s always been aware of the menace right outside; pervasive, like the scent of woodsmoke.
 Image by Anders Drange on Unsplash As I watch my mum ascend on an escalator a guy is playing Hans Zimmer's soundtrack to Interstellar on one of those train station pianos and it's impossible not to start crying. He is giving us the soundtrack to an imagined film of our lives, and in this scene, we are parting after a few days on holiday together. She's a rapidly shrinking woman with a huge suitcase and I am in tears because, even after ten years of living in a different country, when we say goodbye, I remember how much she hates that she can't pop over to my house whenever she wants, which might be one of the top three things she ever wanted, and I wonder if all my life decisions have been wrong. I don't know when the music started, but it's the right music. As a child, I lived my private moments as if I were an actor in a film about my own life and everything that happened was from a script, and everything I said was a line. It was a kind of meta life, because I watched a lot of TV and maybe I was weird (or maybe that was normal, I don't know). But having done that for my first twenty-five years, the idea of actually filming myself now and uploading it to social media is unappealing to say the least (I am a smidge over 40). Yet so many of us do it, and I don't judge. It's normal, and to not do something does not always mean to disapprove. If a stranger is likely to find footage of you eating breakfast cereal interesting, knock yourself out. No one is stopping you. In fact, these days it's encouraged. The guy on the piano was, of course, filming himself, but you don't need to find his uploaded footage to enjoy Hans Zimmer's film score for Interstellar. It's available on Instagram so anyone can use it as their personal soundtrack now (search for Cornfield Chase). You would think that all those soaring scales and modulations would have lost their poignance for being so, dare I say it, overused. It makes me feel like an idiot for crying. Plus, what is there to cry about, really? Lost its poignance – because that music, made for a film about our planet becoming unliveable and families being cleaved apart through space and time, and the one hope of survival resting on the last few noble survivors; that film that looks extraordinary but that is about fears that are so ordinary now; that makes you cry because who wouldn't cry at the thought that their daughter had become older than them and that her life had been vital to save humanity which was in peril because there was no food, only weather; that music that closes our tiny vacation, that my mum loved and hated equally because it was because I live in another country, but to her it might as well be another planet; because that music is for Interstellar, which is probably a better version of what will happen to humanity when we miss the moment to do something, like if I miss this moment to run over and tell my mum I'm sorry and I love her and I didn't mean to make it hard, but of course I don't do that and none of us do anything either. Because that music is a soundtrack for cat videos now. And workout videos where plasticised people who seem to hate themselves hulk weights around as punishment, (or maybe they love themselves, or maybe it's not so binary anymore, I don't know). They bend over in Lycra while Hans Zimmer pours his essence into a gargantuan pipe organ and then they call it wellness, and who am I to judge? And I scroll and scroll, and the music crops up again, and I think—how funny that it's the backing track for scrolling through memes and also the soundtrack to that film about the apocalypse. And I don't think, because it's too terrifying, and because crying about my mum is both easier and all about me, that maybe us on phones, staring at our palms, watching strangers sweat in gyms while the weather closes in and kills people is, in fact, the apocalypse.
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