The Incarnation
Cezarija Abartis As I ran to answer the doorbell, I caught my skirt on the edge of the table and ripped the hem. It's her again: my-mother-the-character, not my mother who bore me from her womb. The latter (like Madame Bovary) committed suicide. The former is still alive, visiting me unpredictably, sewing dresses for me furiously, trying to adorn me in frills and furbelows, in organdy that she never had for herself, in shiny, rustling taffeta. I put down my pen. She seats herself at the treadle sewing machine, pulls out a dress from her small cardboard suitcase (she always comes prepared), forces the fabric under the needle, and clicks along. Next to her, the window is half-open to the spring air. She was never much of a seamstress, and the dresses never quite fit--they gapped at the back of the neck, at the armholes, fluttered loose at the bust. “Just stand straight,” Mom would say. I nearly bent backwards and they still didn’t fit. I wrote down her yearning, imperative voice in all my novels. She wishes to make peace with me, to ask forgiveness for her suicide. To offer me a dress. I’m not sixteen anymore. There are no proms to go to. This mother is younger than I am. I’m the one with cataracts; she’s the one with vivid eyes and strawberry-red hair. I feel like bossing her, telling her to Grow Up, Get Real. She walks toward me. “Honey, I am real.” She puts her hand on mine. It’s warm. “My mother should have gray hair.” “I can dye it, if you like. I want to do what you want. We can remake things.” She taps her forehead; there’s dirt under her nails. “The mind, honey, the magic of the mind.” The curtain flutters. I sit on the couch. The clock ticks. She flicks at the pen on the coffee table. “How do you like your novel?” “It’s about your suicide, but this time I save you.” I point to the black-and-white photograph on the mantel–in it she’s sewing, attaching the sleeve to the armhole, looking not at her work but up at the photographer, me, and her smile is wide and hot. “I prefer writing short stories.” “I always preferred gardening to sewing, watching the parsley and dill come up, the tomatoes. I liked squeezing mud in my hands.” She stretches her fingers in front of her. “Seeing the tendrils poke out of the soil.” She shakes her head sadly. “I wasn’t good at sewing.” “Oh yes you were, Mother, I loved your dresses.” “I love you even more now.” She casts her eyes down. “Let me fix that rip in your skirt.” I take off the skirt and stand there in my thin slip. Am I real to her? I reach to touch her hand. She doesn’t flinch, the way she used to. Our fingertips touch, and she takes the torn skirt, holds it as if weighing it. She goes back to the sewing machine and eases the fabric under the needle. Through the open window I hear chimes and bells playing on the radio next door. |
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About the Author:
Cezarija Abartis' Nice Girls and Other Stories was published by New Rivers Press. Her stories have appeared in FRiGG, Pure Slush, Waccamaw, and New York Tyrant, among others. Her flash, “The Writer,” was selected by Dan Chaon for Wigleaf’s Top 50 online Fictions of 2012; and “To Kiss a Bear” was selected for Wigleaf’s Longlist 2016. Recently she completed a novel, a thriller. She teaches at St. Cloud State University. Her website is here.
Cezarija Abartis' Nice Girls and Other Stories was published by New Rivers Press. Her stories have appeared in FRiGG, Pure Slush, Waccamaw, and New York Tyrant, among others. Her flash, “The Writer,” was selected by Dan Chaon for Wigleaf’s Top 50 online Fictions of 2012; and “To Kiss a Bear” was selected for Wigleaf’s Longlist 2016. Recently she completed a novel, a thriller. She teaches at St. Cloud State University. Her website is here.