The Evening News By Patience Williams
Silver stars twinkled in the black sky. No clouds blocked the view, and no streetlights hazed it over be-
cause the power just went out. The small girl with purple glasses was sequestered in her dark room, and wished for a shooting star to fly across the twinkling sky. Something happened today that invaded her somehow, but she couldn’t pinpoint why she felt that it made her sad and guilty. She heard her sister banging around in the kitchen right as the loud, Latino music that had been pouring in from the loft above theirs suddenly stopped playing. A siren sped past and the doorknob to her room jiggled a little, and then the door flew open. Her older sister Samantha stood there holding a mug steaming at the top, her legs lengthening out of little shorts and her stomach exposed from a tight tank top. There was no air conditioning.
“Are you okay?” Samantha asked.
Someone laughed obnoxiously loud near the window. Gloria sighed, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered.
“Okay. Do you want some tea?”
“Yeah.”
Her older sister sighed a little but, seeing that her younger sister was still watching her, smiled and
walked over. “Be careful, it’s hot.” She placed the mug down on her desk.
Samantha left and closed the door behind her. The power cut back on and the living room light illumi-
nated a dim yellow in the hallway. She turned into the kitchen and refilled the electric kettle and then went into her room. He was sitting upright in bed, leaning against the wooden bedframe with the remote in his lap. Since she arrived empty-handed, he made a small face but didn’t say anything because she saw his reaction. “I’m making more,” she said. He leaned over to kiss her and hug her thigh.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her.
“No, are you?”
“No.” Pause. 23
