My Last Innocent Year

by Daisy Alpert Florin

I opened and closed my hand, watching the mechanics of tendon and bone. Was this really my hand? If so, how was it connected to the rest of my body? What was my body anyway? What made it mine?

I let his language wash over me and, after a while, felt it wriggle inside, burrowing in like earthworms.

I’d seen Debra at her worst, and I’ve found that is often what binds women together. Men admire each other when they are at their best, but women enjoy meeting each other in pits of despair.

The words repeated in my head—are you real are you real are you real—and I pressed my knees hard against the cold tile to remind myself I was.

Was I happy? It was something close.

In comparison, my own body felt full and fertile. I could give him that, I thought, if he wanted it. I could give him everything.

I don’t know why I’d kept it, perhaps to remind me of something I might try to forget. Or maybe to remind myself I’d been lucky, so lucky, given chances I didn’t deserve.