Photo by gryffyn m on Unsplash
by Tina Barry
His wife divorced him. So did the wife before. The first dumped him when instead of the kitten she wanted, he presented a dozen newborn chicks that crapped on the carpet; so much for the white wall-to-wall. The second wife left after he invited her boss to dinner and served take-out pizza. She wept when he insisted her boss stay for a few minutes of hand shadows. Look, he said, twisting his fingers in the lamp light: butterfly, elephant, swan.
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Tina Barry’s short fiction appears in The Best Small Fictions 2020 (spotlighted story) and 2016, A-Minor, Trampset, MacQueen’s Quinterly, SoFLoPoJo and elsewhere. TinaBarryWriter.com
