Nicole Monaghan

New Age

I threw out the bent wand, the mangled pompoms, the sparkly belts. I tossed the beaded purse, like I was taking a free-throw shot, and it went in. I chucked the mesh skirt, its matching tunic, the transparent little shoes. I didn’t want them.

My sixteen-year-old daughter, still with the face she had at twelve was peeing again, pregnant. We’d get through it. She was smart, we had money. College would not be sacrificed. We were figuring out the logistics. My husband was grieving his little girl, but he would not turn his back on her. The boy was decent. They were not so stupid as to plan to marry yet, if ever.

She came out of the bathroom and rubbed her eyes. For one second, she was eight or nine again, a groggy girl about to hurry for the bus. But in a flash, she was thirty or forty, a woman with old wounds.

“Mom?”

“Morning, Sweetheart. How do you feel?”

I was tightening the drawstring neckline of the trash bag, satisfied to bring it outside.

“I think I had a miscarriage.”

CP

Nicole Monaghan loves words and finds inspiration everywhere. Her work has appeared in Foundling Review and is forthcoming in Long Story Short.