When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

the sight of a grown woman whimpering like a baby on the bathroom floor. Christy-Lynn blinks at her, her throat suddenly full of razor blades. “My mother’s sick,” she manages, struggling against the fresh round of tears she will not let come. “You’d better go.” Linda nods slowly, her expression part horror, part fascination. “Sure. Yeah.” She backs slowly out of the doorway, unable to tear her eyes away. “See ya in class.” Christy-Lynn says nothing, wondering as Linda backs away how long it will take for the story to spread through the halls of Berkeley High. Then she looks down at her mother, asleep or very near to it, her sticky dark hair fanned out on the bathroom tiles. She had been the prettiest girl in Monck’s Corner once—a poor man’s Ava Gardner. At least that’s how her mother told it. And once upon a time, it might have been true.