In the first one she’s Sweet Sixteen at the Red Lobster, expecting gifts, balloons, a dozen friends shouting “Surprise.” But it’s just her and my grandparents in a cracked vinyl booth overlooking the highway. She’d put on a lilac dress – it’s still hanging in her closet, she didn’t take it when she left us. In the black and white photo, the dress has turned a muddy shade of brown. Instead of a cake, the waitress has brought each of them slices of key lime pie with tiny candles atop my mother’s piece. They must have been singing Happy Birthday when the flash went off. My mother’s mouth forms a wide O. Is she screaming? Cursing? She wouldn’t tell me. Her eyes are furious as a Category 5 hurricane, waves pummeling the shoreline. She hated that pie, wished she could smash the crumbs out of it. I wonder if I would have been friends with her.
In the second one she’s 22, on her honeymoon. She hand delivered invitations to the wedding, ignoring the glimmer in her belly. Gazes off at something to her left. A cruise ship? A sparrow? The life she deserves – untarnished and smooth as their wedding bands. Somewhere better beyond the next cloud. My father’s arm cinches her waist. He’s a committed bachelor, feeling the steely bite of a trap. He takes long solitary walks on the beach, is prone to sulking, picking apart a decision he can’t undo. She has to coax him out of his bad moods. Both of them are wearing golf shoes without socks. The Jamaican sky bleached white against a glassy sea. Twelve years later, she’ll move to California alone. Now he leans in, kissing her curls. Palm trees rise above their heads like frothy black stars.
Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than 100 literary magazines, including Flash Frog, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and the upcoming Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also the winner of the Smokelong Quarterly 2024 Workshop prize. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she can be reached on X, Bluesky or Instagram @bsherm36.
