It was Easter Sunday, or maybe it wasn’t, but it was a family dinner. A full ham seasoned with brown sugar. Round pineapple slices from a can piercing its sides with toothpicks. And you, Nana, were sitting across from me. My mom sat to your right, my stepfather at the head of the table next to her, which would have put my stepsister to my left. None of this matters. Martinis were to dinners back then what wine is now. Those little triangular glasses, each with a single green olive never eaten. Cocktail hour always starting much earlier. When I get to the part of this story where you stand, pick up your full dinner plate and slam it onto the floor I can never remember why. Just the creamed peas splashing on my new patent leather Mary Janes. I can’t bear the sight of creamed peas to this day. Or green olives.
Jayne Martin is a Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions nominee, and a recipient of Vestal Review’s VERA award. Her collection of microfiction, “Tender Cuts,” is available from Vine Leaves Press. Just released from Whiskey Tit Books and written in flash segments, is “The Daddy Chronicles-Memoir of a Fatherless Daughter.” She lives in California, but dreams of living in Paris.