Of the Wild

by Elizabeth Wambheim

You don't like it when we do that, Dani.” ​“Do what, darling?” ​“When we hide that we're sad.”

Aeris closed his eyes for a moment and drank in the morning—his children happy, his arms full, the future unknown but hopeful—until his heart was saturated with it. If he could not hold onto all this forever, he could at least keep the memory, could fold it like a pressed flower into the deepest pocket of his thoughts.

“Tell 'em to fuck off!” “Oh! That’s-- Don't use that word, okay? Let’s not use that one.”