Photo by Gaurav Kumar on Unsplash
by Mikki Aronoff
Okay, sit, I say, like I used to, all those times when I was fed up with him, but now laying my hands on his shoulder with soft fingers, as my piano teacher would urge. I’ve got news for you.
I’m getting married again, I tell him, after he sits, after I’ve opened the door to find this bedraggled man standing in pouring rain, holding a newspaper over his head, asking me why the hell he was there, and after I’ve given him a drink—neat, and plopped him down at the dining room table. Be happy for me, I say, after I give him my news, which is after I’ve asked him how his dog was, his job, his Buick that buckled into a wall after we signed the papers.
George stands up, slumps over to the door, shuts it behind him. This is after he put his head down on the table, his shoulders shaking, his spilled Johnnie Walker mixing with his tears on my newly polished walnut table with its wood grain patterns we once had fun reading like Rorschach tests, the puddle from the scotch pooling into two wet splotches—silvery, like little blobs of mercury scattering from a broken thermometer, like cells dividing.
Mikki Aronoff lives in New Mexico, where she writes tiny stories and advocates for animals. She has stories in Best Microfiction 2024/2025 and Best Small Fictions 2024 and upcoming in Best Small Fictions 2025.
