What Never Happened

by Rachel Howzell Hall

Because promises are potato chips. They’re cheap. Easy to break. Too many hurt your heart.

Guilt is irrational,

Guilt demands ransom even though you’re broke, and it demands that you keep it company even though it’s fused to every molecule in your body. Guilt makes you scream, “What more do you want?” even though it’s already taken everything, including your happily ever after.

“Thank you for letting me say outlandish things so early in the morning. And thank you for not laughing at me. People tend to disregard us old ladies—they think we’re only good for sewing robes and making hot chocolate, that we’re crazy since we can no longer bear children. But we’re smarter than everyone because we don’t have distractions anymore. No kids. No husbands for many of us. We always knew the evil that men did, and we still do. Just now, no one believes us.”

I can’t even answer that, not really, but there’s something shady about Mateo Amador that’s leading me to zigzag from one side of the street to the other, fast walking sometimes and flat-out running other times, stuck between fear and curiosity, which are separated by an isthmus the width of a jelly bean.