By Yevheniia Dubrova, VI Form

“Waves”: A Short Story

Editor’s Note: The following short story was submitted as a final project in “The Rise of the Short Story: Creative Short Fiction Writing.”

Before Pat was born, my mother and I used to talk. She let me sleep in her bed when dad worked night shifts, and although I never really understood what his job was, I knew it was some kind of important thing because he worked a lot, and that says something. It didn’t bother me much back then, and sometimes, I even wished he would stay at work more often so that I could sleep at my mom’s. She left orange peels on her nightstand until they dried out and wrinkled up. My dad would say they look like pork rinds and throw them away, but it smelled like Christmas, and I liked it. Her bed was solid and soft at the same time, and I swear I could drown in her heavy blankets and crisp linens. We rarely cuddled — mom doesn’t like cuddling — but she talked to me about all sorts of things, and her voice would always put me to sleep, even though I tried to stay awake for as long as possible to listen to her some more.

She didn’t talk much about her youth, except for that one time she told me about finding her mother’s book on childbirth. She saw the pictures. The pictures must have made a lasting impression on my mom because she swore to never have a baby. I asked her if the real thing was as bad as the pictures. She said if she had known it would be that bad, she would never have had me in the first place. She then brushed my hair with her fingers and said she was glad she had me after all, but that birth thing was really bad.

“Can you imagine? All that pain and blood? And with a head like yours… Oh, sweet Jesus Christ, I thought you were going to rip my hips apart!”