Home for the Holidays

by Adonia

"Mom, what's wrong?" "Nothing." "Mom, what's wrong?" "Nothing!" "Mom!" Sobs and sobs and wrap my arms around her fading pink t-shirt and sobs and sobs and "I've been bleeding" and "What?" and "I think I'm dying" and "No, you're not" and "I don't want to die!" and "You're not going to" and "Have I been a good mother?" and "Oh, of course you have" and "Your father will find some skinny replacement" and "No, no don't talk like that, mom, no," and sob and sob and sob and shake and gasp and rub away the tears with my shaky fingers and bring her to my chest and smooth her thinning blond head to sleep and find God and hate him.

6S

Adonia, author of Memory, is a senior journalism student at the University of Maryland, a reporter for American Journalism Review, a blogger, and an aspiring novelist.