Please Tell Me

by Mike Omer

She hadn’t worn shoes for so long. For weeks . . . or months . . . she wasn’t sure. Maybe even a year.

“This is the before. I want you to get some toys and place them here to show me how you were before Kathy disappeared.”

In the past year, Robin had had four kids from Bethelville who came to see her as a result of Kathy Stone’s disappearance.

Melody’s daughter Amy used to be best friends with Claire’s daughter, Kathy.

Thirty-One Forest claimed a new notoriety soon after Kathy’s disappearance. It was where the police had found her shoes.

It was that gossip was a firm bridge between Mom and her. When they gossiped, they were the closest a mother and a daughter could be.

Life gave her this child that suddenly was more important than anything else in the world, and then cruelly gave the child a mind of her own.

This was another thing the pandemic had killed, along with millions of people. It had killed spontaneity.