One Day in December

by Josie Silver

I’m not a bitch though; or maybe I’m just a quiet one inside my own head. Isn’t everyone?

There’s something about living in a different place that allows you to be whoever you want to be.

“Mum, this is Laurel,” he says as he steps out of her hug, his hand on the small of my back to encourage me forward. Afterward, I realize that I should have read more into the fact that he called me Laurel rather than Laurie.

“Very domesticated,” Sarah says. I can’t deny it. I’ve made no headway at all with looking for somewhere else to live, partly because of what happened to Jack, but if I’m honest mostly because I’m enjoying playing house without the onerous responsibility of a mortgage or bills. It’s a ridiculous way to live, I know, but for Oscar it’s just how life has always been, and I have to admit it’s amazing to feel so safe. Every now and then I wonder if it’s too safe, too steady, but sitting here listening to Sarah, I know I should thank my lucky stars.

You tread lightly through life, but you leave deep footprints that are hard for other people to fill.”

between. We were each other’s chrysalis love, we grew together until we couldn’t grow together anymore.

And then he looks down at me, and his eyes say all the things he cannot. His gaze holds mine as we dance slowly, and I silently tell him that I’ll always carry him in my heart, and he silently tells me that in another place, another time, we’d have been pretty damn close to perfect.

I’m treading water. In fact, that’s how I’d sum up my whole life right now. It’s strange—you’d think that in the upheaval of separation, the stability of work would be welcome. It’s actually had the opposite effect; it’s made me want to throw all my cards up in the air and see where they land. I’m treading water, but what I want is to swim. There. That’s my resolution for the year ahead in one word. 3) Swim.