Fiction from Melissa Ostrom

Photo: Matt Artz

She’ll Deal Quickly

One, from their first week, the red shirt drawn from his shoulders, worn home a next-morning to rub and breathe. She plans to keep it. Two, the key to the side door. Hers. Three, wind. It scrapes leaves off the grass, flings them at the window, as if to say, “There. Happy?” White then white then white, sky’s teeth. Below: fall. Season, imperative and she obeys. God, she is always obeying. Will she stand again? His preferences have been confiscated; his manner of mixing gimlets, craving for Lewiston’s good bread, brand of running shoes, appropriated. She looks around. He’s almost here. The outside is no safer. Everything means him. What green remains is scrub. It hangs in the woods, a florescent fog, chartreuse and last to leave.
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Melissa Ostrom is the author of The Beloved Wild (Feiwel & Friends, 2018), a Junior Library Guild book and an Amelia Bloomer Award selection, and Unleaving (Feiwel & Friends, 2019). Her stories have appeared in many journals and been selected for Best Small Fictions 2019, Best Microfiction 2020, Best Small Fictions 2021, Best Microfiction 2021, and Wigleaf Top 50 2022. She lives with her husband, children, and dog Mocha in Holley, New York. Learn more at www.melissaostrom.com or find her on Twitter @melostrom.