Intercepts

by T.J. Payne

Her mom only wore makeup for special occasions and made no effort to hide the crow’s feet that had grown around the edges of her eyes. The same with the laugh-lines that formed on her forehead and her cheeks whenever she stretched her face into that wide grin, often accompanied by a howling, unrestrained guffaw when she found something amusing. Those loud laughs often burst out at inopportune times — dinner, the movies, even Uncle Dan’s funeral — and were often met by a glare from Riley. Her mom would then try to swallow the laugh, which only resulted in a

gagging, snorting sound. At which point, much to Riley’s mortification, her mom would laugh even louder.

“Listen, grief can be a mind-fuck,” Hannah said, patting Riley’s hand. “Sometimes our minds are like reservoirs. More and more gets poured into it, and they fill and fill. And our little emotional reservoirs have always held, no matter what shit we’ve dealt with. We think we can deal. But grief is this fucking monsoon. And it just doesn’t stop. And it fills our reservoir. And fills it. And fills it. Then all those dams and dykes and levees and locks or whatever, all those things we’ve built to keep our reservoirs from overflowing… they burst. And when one of them bursts, they all burst. Like dominoes. And it can be debilitating. But it’s okay. It’s normal.”

“I’m so fucked. I’m fired. I’m so fucking fired,” he repeated over and over. “They’re gonna blame me. I’m the chem guy. They’re gonna fucking blame me. For a computer glitch that can’t be recreated and has never happened before. I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.” Chuck wanted to comfort his young colleague, but he had nothing comforting to say. He knew the truth about how this business worked. Yep, kid be fucked.