Disappearing Earth

by Julia Phillips

Being born second had given Sophia the privilege of staying a baby all her life.

Near him, she couldn’t think of anything but him. But when they were a little apart she returned to herself, and she liked that woman she came back to. Someone…capable. Someone who maintained standards, who met commitments, who produced results. Someone who would be disappointed in a man who acted the way Max so often did. She should be disappointed with him.

Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long. After her husband hung up, Natasha skated past her brother at the wall, their mother cleaning her glasses beside him. Loving someone close-up—that was difficult.

Worse periods, yes, but no worse moment, because no other grief distilled so well into a single instant: that stick sailing off into the sky and her dog following.

He spoke carefully. This was how he talked in moments of great stress; during arguments, he became deliberate. He tried to manage her.

No matter where she went now, people, consciously or not, were drawn toward her tragedy. They responded to some call she was still emanating; they felt compelled to approach.

Marina would learn to close her ears to strangers; she would return to the newspaper; she would sedate herself with pills; she would continue to survive. But if she had the choice, she would not do any of that—she would go backward. To her children, her best work, her happy fact of a childhood. Where the whole world waited to be discovered. Where everyone had something to teach her and no one had ever been lost.