Photo by Lisa Berry on Unsplash
Tanya yanks the ends of her new clothesline tight, but when she begins pinning the damp laundry, the ties come undone, sheets and shirts landing in the dirt, the words Can’t you do a damn thing right echoing in her head and she’s twelve again, always forgetting a homework assignment or mixing things up, like when she fetched her stepfather the wrong tool and he said, claw hammer, not tack hammer, Dumbo, barking a nicotine-coarsened laugh, and Tanya shrugged his hand off her shoulder, bristling at the C’mon, don’t be so sensitive, that landed like the nails he was pounding into the rotting shed door.
Tanya drops to her knees, gathers up the soiled garments, brushes them off. She’s always dried her laundry outside—on hangers, over chairs, on tree branches, loves how it flutters free in the breeze, smells like fresh air and sun. So old-fashioned, she thinks, couldn’t I just use a dryer like everyone else? She suddenly sits upright, looks at the frayed end of the rope, laughs aloud. Or I could just google how to make a fucking knot!
Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s work appears in Centaur, CRAFT, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Gooseberry Pie, Milk Candy Review, New Flash Fiction Review, and others. Award-winning books include flash collection, Wolfsong, and YA novel, Roots of The Banyan Tree. kathrynsilverhajo.com; facebook.com/kathryn.silverhajo; twitter.com/KSilverHajo; @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social
