Things We Set on Fire

by Deborah Reed

If only she could speak. This close to leaving for good, there were things she wanted to say. And laugh. She was dying to laugh. That was funny. It all seemed funny now. Crack up over a crackpot attempt at rushing herself out when she was already so close to leaving. What had been the point? Oh. She remembered. Believing she could control the world, a fool’s mission, right down to the burning desire to manipulate the memories inside her daughters’ heads. Play God. Leave them with visions of her own making. Infuse meaning into the murkiness of confusion, recalling a childhood from decades-old conversations. Painting the past was as futile as it was necessary to get right, which one could not, ever, get right. How many versions were there? Everyone attached to her own. Still, Kate had planted the seed. Her daughters would look back someday, remember their mother was ill, and it would be tragic, yes, but at least Kate died in her sleep. Give them that. The peace of it. A died-in-her-sleep story. Kate was lucky, then, so would say friends at dinner parties, spouses, psychiatrists, her children’s children, someday. She had not suffered long. No better way to go. What pain had these doe-eyed daughters of happiness known before Kate became so ill? How had they suffered? A bad day at school? Wanting a toy, a dress, a book Kate could not afford? Never knowing their father, perhaps? No. Even there they were still better off. All the fighting had gone on when Averlee and Quincy were ...