We Saw it Coming

Allie Zornes

Mom’s soft red nightgown swishes over the threshold while I turn down my bed covers— our ritual. Goodnight, she’ll say, or I love you, or see you in the morning.

“Grandma Sharon’s passed away,” she says.

My stomach twists like how Grandma used to twist sponges after washing dishes, suds glittering on her liver-specked, trembling hands. Sometimes yellow macaroni sauce spotted her shirt but we kept quiet; those shaky hands, they fed us—loved us, but we saw this coming, so Mom kisses my hair— Goodnight. Love you—while my stomach falls and splatters on some hard surface in me.

Her hands shook so savagely, yanked on unseen wires, that sometimes the sponge slipped from her grip and wetly slapped the floor.