by Natasha Williams

photo collection of the author 

The kitchen was thick with cigarette smoke and A Love Supreme, his favorite Coltrane. I danced with scarves wrapped around my undersized torso, one tied gypsy-like around my head. Dime-store clip earrings dangled at my neck. I twirled to his lap, where he slumped over his coffee cup at the dining room table, and pulled on his hand to join me. Anchored to his chair by something weightier than our life could contain, he chuckled, looking into his cup, waiting for the “holy” calling only he could hear.

She is me, twenty-two years old, young, younger than I can imagine being from this vantage point. She’s driving a car down a narrow road, wending her way through the New Hampshire woods. That girl is trying to master a stick shift for the first time. She’s not doing too badly, but on inclines, when the gears don’t catch, she finds herself rolling backwards and gets a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

My former self is newly married. She blasts the car radio, making pop songs into a soundtrack for her life. Rock me gently.

1. Drink lots of water. Pee constantly.
2. Listen to SZA and Travis Scott’s song “Love Galore.” Dance around your apartment while you sing along to the lyrics. Pretend you are rapping the song for maximum effect.
3. Avoid every bar you visited before and during knowing her. No good comes from the drink overtaking you, especially if she’s there too.
4. Go indoor rock climbing. Scale up a cliff that no one forced you to. You will feel weak, but you carried your entire body weight all the way to the top. Try to get back down slowly.

Editors’ Note: this story depicts emotionally difficult subject matter. Readers sensitive to topics of domestic violence and infant loss are advised before reading.

It was a Friday night after a high school football game the first time I was afraid of Edward. We’d been matched up as board game partners at a mutual friend’s house ten months before, after briefly meeting in church. His eyes were the first thing I noticed about him while we dominated as Password partners. They were a startling electric blue that I imagined fell somewhere between “B” and “V” on the ROYGBIV scale of the color spectrum−more Halls Mentho-Lyptus Drops,

Collecting Ninety-Two Years of Wisdom

“The silver Swan, who living had no Note, when Death approached,

unlocked her silent throat.” –Orlando Gibbons

It’s some night we’re fighting—or, maybe it’s after a bite-sized disagreement (just a morsel of our routine arguments, just a crumb of our crumbling marriage)—when Husband asks, “Do you hate me because you think I’m like your father?”

I am seated on the hard chair in the therapist’s office with my then-husband to my left. The therapist leans back against his own chair, relaxed, taking notes. My husband leans back comfortably as well. I fidget incessantly from the left to the right, twisting my wedding rings around my finger repeatedly while he speaks loudly and clearly with ease. It is our first appointment, and we discuss the affair I know he is having. But in this office, it is not an affair. Platonic friendship is the chosen narrative here. I cry when I explain why I cannot swallow that story.