The Ex Talk

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Mine is the kind of high-pitched voice men love to weaponize against women. Shrill. Unintelligent. Girly, as though being a girl is the worst kind of insult.

when I used to ask why my parents didn’t have a wedding. Then she’d laugh her musical laugh. “And I couldn’t imagine anything more tragic.”

The deceased don’t immediately become flawless human beings. And it wouldn’t be right to turn him into one. We loved him, faults and all.

The morning creeps by. It’s about as agonizing as getting a root canal followed by a Pap smear.

I am five two. Respect those two inches.

But I’m still stuck on the other thing he said: Nothing lasts. It probably lasts even less time if you’re lying about it.

I could be content with this. I could continue giving him superficial responses, or I could make a concrete attempt to get to know my future stepfather. Because regardless of what I do or don’t say, it’s happening. A few months from now, this man who’s shown my mother and me nothing but kindness will be an even more permanent fixture.

Maybe there will always be a ghost in this house, but it doesn’t mean that I need to disappear, too.