20091223

Hindsight

by Samantha Tetangco

At the end of his life, Charles knew one thing: he shouldn’t have painted his house green. Then maybe he would’ve known what to say that early April morning when the robin’s nest fell from the tree and his wife cried, large beads of wet salt dripping from her dimpled chin. For weeks, she’d stared into the sky, watching its rise and fall with a stoic silence he didn’t try to understand. Charles should have looked at her instead of the way the house blended with the loping pines. He should have wondered about her instead of whether it would have been better in eggshell white. He should have said “I’m sorry” instead of “what is it now?”

6S

Samantha Tetangco spent most of her life living in California but is currently working towards her MFA in Fiction at the University of New Mexico. She edits Blue Mesa Review.