Her car keys. Purse. Phone. Wallet. Lipstick. Mad money. Romance novel. Grocery list. Shoe size. Favorite color. Address. The ingredients in her famous cinnamon bread. To turn off the stove after she’s made herself a cup of blueberry vanilla tea. The whereabouts of her savings account. The capital of Florida. The lyrics to “It’s a Wonderful World,” the song she once danced to at her wedding. The name of the neighbor who lived across the hall from her for 34 years. The scent of my father’s aftershave. Where she was born. Where I work. Who the president is. How she got here —this fuzzy, all-mistake place with its doctor visits and tests, this drumbeat of I-know-what-it’s-called-just-give-me-a-minute. What a flashlight is for. The time I went skiing and fractured my ankle. The time she won $50 in a limbo contest. The time she said, don’t marry him, keep looking and ended up being right. The time we drove to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on a whim and ate Pralines N Cream taffy on the boardwalk. All the times she told me she loved me when I was small, right before pulling the sheets up to my chin. My middle name. The fact that my father’s been dead since 2003. How to keep her balance. How to calculate a tip. How to spell Miami. Use the computer. Button a blouse. Write a check. Find her way home. How to laugh. How when she was a girl she used to catch fireflies in a jar and set them free on the back lawn of her parents’ house, the way they were ugly at first, until their stomachs sparked yellow for one glorious moment and they flickered against the darkness.
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Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than 100 literary magazines, including Flash Frog, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024. She’s also a multiple Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net nominee.