My story starts with my ___
- daughter
- mother
- sister
and an Uber-driving stalker.
The sidewalk was so hot that day you could fry an egg. In ___
- Phoenix
- Las Vegas
- North Texas
- Numerous places since the world began hot flashes
you could fry an egg and serve it up with home fries, extra crispy.
I’d been listening to Dateline (I do so more often than I should) and Josh Mankiewicz said things happen in the heat, people go crazy, break-ins happen all the time.
I was thinking it’s hot enough to fry an egg… What’s the crime rate in ___ (d/e/f/g) in July, when my ___ (a/b/c) called.
I heard Uber driver and bike stolen and keeps coming back and every day on the Ring camera and police report and scared and what else should we do?
And I thought about heat and things worse than stealing. About how ___ (a/b/c) is ___
- clueless
- sick
- old
- gay
And I got scared.
(That’s where this story really starts.)
But before I say more, I need to tell you about my husband. How he never imagines the worst. Never listens to Dateline. And how I feel like a hysterical woman sometimes, though he never says that actual word. He’s a guy who believes women ___
- could be president, should be president
- should rule the world
- can do anything
- all of the above
he ___
- does laundry
- cooks dinner every night
- both
The best kind of guy, but he doesn’t know what it feels like:
- to go running and have a man follow you for miles, notice him stopping every time you stop, go to a house where someone is home and pound on their door trying not to look hysterical telling a stranger a man’s following you until that stranger drives you home.
- To be alone in an Airbnb in St. Louis eating mint chip ice cream and reading Stephen King and suddenly there’s a man in a black hoodie with his face against the window and you jump, scream, and call the police and the man runs away but you trade SK for Mary Oliver and lock the bedroom door and leave the lights on and don’t sleep for days.
- to always walk with car keys in hand, like a weapon, just in case.
- all of the above
He understands intellectually, but he doesn’t know what it feels like to be on alert all the time.
So back to the story, the story about my ___ (a/b/c) and the stalker, they are women and they are ___ (h/i/j/k) which adds another layer so I’ve told them to ___
- order an alarm
- put sticks in all the sliding doors and windows
- let the dogs roam the house free at night because even though they are a golden retriever and a thirty pound poodle, they are fierce (especially the poodle, Penelope), they are naughty meaning they jump and leave pawprints on your new white shirt and Penelope growls and once jumped out of a second story window to pursue someone and even the vet is scared of her
- get a handgun and learn to use it, because even though we don’t like the idea of a gun get one! I say, thinking that many of my friends would be horrified and they may even unfriend me on Facebook and in life, but our backs are up against the wall, we live in America
My husband seems concerned, but not concerned enough.
My ___ (a/b/c) says no to the (z) but yes to w), but it takes days to install and my mind goes down that dark Dateline path and then
(this is where the story really starts)
I tell my husband that I want our ___ (a/b/c) to stay at our house with the dogs until (w) happens.
And he says NO.
Not no to ___ (a/b/c), but no to the dogs. Because he’s not a dog person and also the dogs might ___
- pee on the floor
- jump on our sapphire blue couch
- chew on the new wood table which fits our entire family at Thanksgiving
- we have a rule about dogs in the house—no dogs in the house
Do you blame me?
and my husband’s NO has a bite that reminds me of Penelope when she’s serious and even though he’s the best kind of guy, I’m starting to dislike him.
We’re both yelling, and ___
- He’s mad because I told ___ (a/b/c) they could stay without asking him
- I’m madder, because how do house rules compare to EMERGENCY?
- What the actual fuck?
We say some not-very-nice things I won’t repeat and he says they can stay without the dogs but I say the dogs are their children! and I’m
- saying if no dogs matters more than murder then this entire marriage may be over which is sad because I really do love this really good guy
- saying the house needs to be sold and I’ll get a place where Penelope’s allowed any old time
- running to the backyard to drink half a bottle of Merlot and drunk-dial the friend who’s patient as Mother Mary
I’m asking for advice because I SHOULD ___
- leave him, right?
- not leave?
This friend ___
- is fair,
- sees his perspective,
- asks if maybe there are other solutions,
- helps me find another solution: a Penelope-friendly Airbnb until (w)
- helps me understand the real reason I’m mad is that he didn’t offer to help find solutions
Over morning coffee, my husband apologizes for not being nicer and I apologize for threatening to sell the house and all is right with the world.
Except for the stalker. He’s still in every state every city every day.
Kelli Short Borges writes from her home in Phoenix, Arizona, where her family has lived for six generations. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Peatsmoke, Gone Lawn, Ghost Parachute, Lost Balloon, Moon City Review, and elsewhere. Kelli’s work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and the Pushcart Prize. Recently, her work was chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist and Best Microfiction 2024. She is currently working on her first novel. Amy Marques grew up between languages and places and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She’s been nominated for multiple awards, longlisted twice in Wigleaf 50, and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Fictive Dream, Unlost, Ghost Parachute, BOOTH, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Gone Lawn. She is the editor and visual artist for the Duets anthologies and author and artist of the chapbook Are You Willing? and the found poetry book PARTS. More at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.