Before You Knew My Name

by Jacqueline Bublitz

That’s the other side of America, after all. A country whose history is shiny on the outside, a glossy front, until you realize only one version of the story is being told.

How easy it is, Ruby will think later, back in her studio, to assume you are the cause of another person’s discomfort or disdain, when the reality is, we all show up with our night befores, our midnight hours and too-early mornings.

People mourn the future that is lost when someone dies. But what about the past? What about all that is bound up in a person, and all the things that disappear when they die?

She’ll reach out if she needs me, she told herself, and that’s it, isn’t it. That’s how a person slips out of your life so easily. Sometimes forgetting is simply waiting too long.