The Art of Inheriting Secrets

by Barbara O'Neal

The serving dish was brass with carving on the edges, and I took out my phone. “Do you mind if I post things to Instagram?” “No.” She laughed, nudging the low, flat bowl of chutney my way. “I seriously do not mind if one of the most respected food editors in the US Instagrams my food.”

If I was honest with myself, I didn’t feel anything over his email. He’d already faded to sepia in my emotions, a lover I’d once cared about. No longer.

“But it’s different, don’t you think? America is essentially a meritocracy, in that you can earn your way up the ranks via education and money.” “But can you, really? University is wildly expensive, is it not? Not everyone can afford the cost.”

I was no innocent. I knew my way around courting and rituals and how to play it cool, but in all my life, I’d never simply breathed the smell of another human being and wanted to scramble out of my clothes instantly. It made him seem dangerous. It made me feel unstable.

My head whirled, and I had to hold on to him, or I would have spun right out of the car into the night and the rain.

I slept a solid eleven hours, falling far away into the other lands where the sleep spirits knitted me back together.