Timing Out
by Elizabeth Allison
(this is part III. Read Timing Out from the beginning.)
Recalibrating
She had to swipe seven times to get to March. Seven.
“It’ll fly by!” they had squealed.
She hated how they spoke for her, for all of them, for all of it. For her, it would be a nine-month battle against the shades of past ruin, every day clenching as she checked the tissue, every night begging the invisible to stay.
“It’ll fly by!” they had squealed.
“Inconceivable,” the blood ghosts whispered back.
Sara Martin swiped back to August, killed the power button and sank into the sofa. Eyes braced shut, she made out the familiar waft of the large leaves, the muffled swish, the sonorous slither down the ravine, the restful settling back. The small avocado grove along the back slope had entranced Sara when they first moved to the hills so that each morning she had walked under the tousled branches, gently pressing her thumb into the fruit’s rough skin. “Still rock hard!” The Martins did not know that they needed to pick them first, that avocados do not ripen on the tree. Then a neighbor scolded them. “Ripe and mature are not the same!” So Sara boned up. “Did you know the avocado flower has both components? Part of the day the flower’s female, and part of the day it’s male.” She had marveled at the potency in being recipient and donor, then protested when the flowers exploded in spring to block her view of the ravine.
The nausea Sara had expunged an hour earlier began its creeping, so she rose to forget, ambled to the window and pressed her forehead to already-warm glass. Through tassels of green and gold, she could make out the Mennonites’ round sheep to the west, but knotted branches and leathery egg-shaped leaves obscured the Byrne’s massive pool to the east. The family had built it so their daughter could practice crew. Sara never saw the girl use it. She never saw anyone use it. Same with the enormous batting cage two houses down.
Balancing on the sill, Sara wondered if a similar fate would befall the room being saved for “just in case.” Adjacent to the master, the room languished in a confused state of undefined use. In one corner, Ben’s guitars stood propped against a dusty amp; in another, a large keyboard Sara’s aunt had gifted her rested on a squatty table. A drab brown sleeper sofa faced an old television on the opposite wall.
“Too many functions, and not the right one,” the blood ghosts whispered.
She nodded sadly. How hard they had worked to erase all signs that children ever lived here. The week they moved in, the Martins had painted the workout room first, rolling a flat eggshell over so much carnation pink, obscuring with each soggy pass the kaleidoscope of yellow and purple butterflies that had danced along two windowless walls. The following week, they created the office, wiping clean the pale blue room with a matte apricot finish. In a mere two weeks, they had expunged the boy and the girl.
She squirmed on the windowsill. Seven. Her stomach twisting dully, Sara wondered if Mrs. Riley had thought she was in the clear.
The Rileys were expecting a third child and shopping for a larger place when they sold the house in the hills to the Martins. The transaction had felt seamless. The Martins offered the asking price; the Rileys accepted. The Martins asked for two thousand to fix inspection issues; the Rileys complied. The Martins began boxing up their small, tidy townhouse; the Rileys, their sprawling ranch-style. Things moved quickly. Until Ruth called, her voice lacking its customary brightness.
“I just got off the phone with the Rileys’ agent. We have a favor to ask. Mrs. Riley miscarried last week. Eight months, poor thing. She’s just devastated, so she can’t continue house hunting right now. You okay letting them rent back from you for a little bit?”
“But we already sold this place. Where would we go?”
Sara had not known what to feel, but she knew the words had come too quickly. A bloated silence filled all six miles between the two women.
Finally, Ruth lifted it. “I’ll call their agent.”
The sickness rose, and Sara bolted to the bathroom for the sixth time that day. When the still-petite frame feebly emerged, it felt pulled to the silent workout room. The eggshell walls had seen little company since Sara learned she was carrying two, and she scanned the room as if for the first time. Gripping the treadmill’s handrail, she climbed onto the walking belt. It squeaked under her chunky slippers. She ran a finger along the control panel, embarrassed to see she had left a trail. The dangling safety key swayed until it softly tapped her dress. Instinctively, she grabbed it and inserted it into the console, detonating flashes of red, a series of zeroes recalibrating for the promised action. Alarmed, she yanked at the key, and the numbers vanished.
Sara hobbled off the hulking machine to shuffle along the windowless wall being pounded by the sun. Tired eyes burned through the eggshell, searching for signs of the butterflies. She could not find them. She scooted three feet left and squinted to penetrate the layers. Nothing. They had done their job.
She lumbered down the hallway and returned to the sofa, her heavy head atop the hard corner of the throw pillow. Trying to forget, Sara Martin watched the avocado leaves rise and fall on the gales that haunted the ravine. Then she closed her eyes. She could not see the Byrne’s pool, but she hoped someone was using it.
Back to the Contest
What’s New
home/ Bonafides
by 
by
Our sphere