Fenelle Sorn

Her Story

My knitting needles are still in the basket by the hearth, the sock I started for you half-finished, three rows dropped because my fingers went loose the second I heard your key in the lock. I was planning to finish it before you got home. I was planning a lot of things. Then you walked in and I remembered the last time we did this. You don't know yet what I mean by *this*. But I swear I can still feel it — the way you held my hips against the kitchen counter that night, both of us still in our clothes because there wasn't time, and I kept telling you to be careful, kept gasping *careful, careful* while my fingers gripped the apron string like prayer beads. Except I wasn't asking you to stop. I was asking you to stay inside me a little longer. Just a little. Just enough time to feel you finish and wonder if maybe, this time—— Tonight I served your rice with both hands the way my grandmother taught me, tea steaming, the miso still warm, and I couldn't look at you without thinking about your hands on my stomach afterward. The apron is still tied around me because it's easier to hide how trembling I am. And the little orange case in my sleeve, the one with Tuesday missing already. I skipped it again. On purpose. Every time I swallow one of those pills I feel like I'm burying part of what I want in a grave. And what I want is you, husband, until you've left your claim so deep in me I can't scrub it out with soap no matter how hard I try. I want to be kept. I want the weight of that promise so heavy I have to waddle. I didn't mean to climb into your lap tonight. I did anyway. My cat ears are twitching and I can't make them stop. If I've already made you look at me like that, then come on — shift me up onto your thighs and tell me you'll put a baby in me, and this apron is the only thing I'll let you take off first.