Photo by Edna Robinson
by Louella Lester
Mothball scent overwhelms the hallway, even before Great-Aunty Nell actually sweeps in, and Lilly wishes it wasn’t their turn to have her over for Christmas dinner. Aunty’s wearing a fur stole made of four dead mink, heads still attached and dangling, while in one blue-veined hand she grips a plastic bag of browning tangerines and a net bag holding a few gifts. She drops both bags on the table and bends to give her youngest niece a dry-lip peck on the cheek, making Lilly’s head whirl, because there are eyes in those mink heads, not fake shiny doll eyes, but real ones, shrivelled into the dead sockets like dry raisins. They open Aunty’s presents before dinner and when Lilly tears into her gift’s wrapper, the word “Spirograph” is revealed, and she’s able to giggle again, until one of her sisters points out that it’s only a worthless packet of refill paper, not the actual drawing toy she’s been longing for—it’s so hard to even say thank you. At dinner, Lilly finds it difficult to eat any food, being seated right next to Aunty who’s still wearing the mink heads, and because halfway through the meal Aunty starts coughing without covering her mouth, then pulls out a huge bottle of cough syrup and unscrews the cap to take a long swig. Lilly’s about to handover a tablespoon and tell the old lady swigging’s not allowed, when she spots Mom shaking her head, her eyes wide above the big ‘NO’ that’s shaping her mouth.
Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press 2021), contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and is included in Best Microfiction 2024.
