A large German Shepherd was loose in my neighborhood. I couldn’t tell from the way it hopped around in the dark whether it was excited in a good or bad way. My mother was attacked by a large German Shepherd a few years before; either through recency bias or a now wiser intuition, were anything resembling an ordeal to appear she wasn’t too keen on her chances of survival. She grasped my left arm and we shuffled the half block back to the house that we had just set out upon.
I was more or less relieved. I’m not the type to be in the mood for a walk at 10 at night. But when my mom passed through the frame of the front door, she brought a shade of the darkness in with her. I knew she felt stuck in this house, and in her room, and in her bed. She, the manic pixie of my young father’s wildest dreams; she, who found outdoor concerts where they should never have been and danced with no drinks long into long nights; she, who snuck onto a movie set by claiming she was Mark Harmon’s niece, and was allowed to stay when he confirmed it. She was getting old. And the person she wanted to live out was no longer at her fingertips.
Night walks were her Hail Mary: a last piece of the unknown, the exciting, the possibly dangerous that she was still allowed to experience. But the large German Shepherd was now checking out our driveway, and we were inside.
I sat on a couch longways and re-opened my novel but I couldn’t read it. The words were never able to quite pull my thoughts away. Instead, I debated going to say something, and wondered if saying something would do anything.
My mother came back upstairs. She asked if she could turn off the lights, and I said yes without looking. I wouldn’t admit it but I was afraid of that look on her face when she passed through the door. I didn’t want to know that it was still there.
The lights turned off, and thirty or more small battery-powered tea lights lit up the first story. They were on the kitchen counters near the dirty dishes, the dining room table we hadn’t used in years, the armrests of couches, the banisters of the stairs.
When she asked me if I would walk with her again, I said yes.
We tread down a short and slow path about the upper story. First down the gap between the television and the plush brown sectional, then back; then around the kitchen past the coffee-maker, then the sink, the stove, the oven, the garbage bins, the refrigerator, and the pantry; around the short edge of the dining room table where no one sat, past my sister’s seat, past mine, past my father’s, past hers; toward the half bathroom, and back again; down along the stacks of shoes, across the entry to the stairs, and back to the living room to begin again.
On one pass I remembered when one of the white couches that mimicked embroidery like monochrome tapestry was filled with clothes and drawers taken from their dresser, around the time she had moved out of my father’s room. It seemed then like they would never empty.
In my left ear was an earbud from the headphones we shared. The other end was an ipod nano that played mostly Taylor Swift but also the Police and her favorite indie band who had since broken up. In my right ear was the muted shrill of intoxicated spanish karaoke through a closed window, coming from the house across the street who had something to celebrate.
Whenever her earbud fell out my body froze as she unlinked her arm from mine to retrieve it. I knew that were she to reach down and fall the tumor in her left shoulder would sound off and she would throw up from the pain. We would have to call the ambulance again. I walked even more slowly after that.
The lights each faked a flicker inside an opaque casing shaped like a water droplet. They were set far apart enough that the mess between them was barely visible. The house was as clear as an outside without a large German Shepherd in it.
At some point she decided she was done, and she thanked me. I said you’re welcome. She turned the room lights back on, plucked each of the tea lights, and turned their little black stubs to off. I dared a glance. Her face was tired, but the shadow was gone.
I checked my gut. It told me that while the walk was generally pleasant, I was mildly unsatisfied. I returned to the couch, and to my book. This time, I read.
It turns out, the night walk was just enough.
Thank you for making it to the end of my short story 🙂 Please feel free to leave comments and writing critiques below!
Short Stories
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