Diverse Voices Quarterly Issue 1 & 2

I passed my fingers through the warm mist spilling down the sides of the crystal bowl
and told Sarah, “I hope so.”
Sarah bent to pick up one of the pages of homework streaming from Annie’s backpack.
I saw the white cotton cup of her bra under her white blouse and felt like I was back in
college, stealing another glimpse. I have born witness for more than a decade to the
transformation of Sarah’s form. Her breasts were pulled by gravity. They were reshaped by
the milk they carried, pulled by the hungry mouths of our three children. Although they
no longer point to the sky, her breasts have a power over me now more erotic than they
did in our days on the Mystic when we made love throughout every afternoon.
I wanted to make love to her in Annie’s bed.
“So, when do you leave?” Sarah asked, referring to the opening day of the hunting
season. She was looking out the window.
“Wednesday, in two weeks.”
“Should we call them in?”
“Not yet.”
“They are pretty cute together,” Sarah said, then licked cookie dough from the spoon.
Princess Leia and Dar-kader were preparing for another Imperial ground assault:
Annie was digging with the shovel. Jack was on his knees behind her scooping the snow
away with his mittens. I drove the kids the distance from house to house trick-or-treating
earlier in the evening. Jack corrected every neighbor who addressed him as Darth Vader.
“Are you making cookies?” I asked.
“Oatmeal,” Sarah answered, still watching the kids.
“But it’s Halloween.”
“And I wanted some cookies.”
From where I was sitting in Annie’s bed, I could see Sarah’s blue eyes reflected in the
window glass. I watched her eyes watching our children.
“It’s past their bedtime.”
I waited a few seconds then said, “Just a little longer.”
Jack threw himself under his sister and squirmed between her legs in an attempt to
get inside the snow tunnel. She trapped him between her boots and drug him out of
the cave by his pant leg. Both Annie and Jack were laughing.
Sarah licked the spoon clean and placed it on the nightstand next to the humidifier.
Diverse Voices Quarterly, Vol. 1, Issue 1 & 2
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