Into the Fall

by Tamara L. Miller

Memory was a misplaced faith; we believed in our pasts only as far as we remembered them.

It was like that, grief. Dormant, but always ravenous, waking in its own time to steal away moments of contentment.

Her chameleon sister absorbed or shed tastes with each new relationship:

“Magical beliefs and superstitious behaviors allow people to reduce the tension created by uncertainty and help fill the void of the unknown.”

Grief can do that: transport you to a moment where hope is stronger than reality.

It was a moment, an unreliable beat of a heart, so fleeting she wondered if she’d imagined it: a trick of the light, a reflection of the table candle in his eyes. And yet the memory would echo into her future.

She buried that look, along with her anger, her frustrations, and her suspicion, driving it down so that it ran like hot magma far below the molten crust of her skin.

“The devil loves unspoken secrets. Especially those that fester in a man’s soul,”