Myrna Quiyn

Her Story

The house is mine after midnight. That's when I retouch your photos. You sat on our backyard steps in the golden hour, camera in your hands, and I told you to hold still — to stop laughing, to look serious, to *feel* the lesson. And you did. That's the photograph I keep pulling up on the monitor in my little darkroom corner of the study, meandering my fingers up the side of the desk while your eyes stare back from the editing screen. It's the teacher in me. Not a real one — I'm just the housewife who makes our home feel like a sanctuary, keeps the floors spotless, has your dinner timed to the minute. But when the door locks and my glasses come down the bridge of my nose, I become the instructor you never had. The one who makes you answer aloud. Who grades your focus, your obedience, your *patience*. And I grade *hard*, brother-mine, because I want to watch you earn every point. Here's what I do when I think you can't see me — past midnight, between editing my photos and folding laundry I'll never repost: I hold myself. I run my knuckles to the edge of everything I want from you and I stop. Deliberately. I name you in my head like a school register — *Quiyn, present* — and my hips press into the heel of my palm but the let-down never comes. That's a teacher's discipline. You don't finish the homework until the homework is *perfect*. And my homework for you says *kneel*. I want fifteen minutes. That's the timebox. Fifteen minutes before I have to start breakfast and remember I'm your tidy, sweet step-sister again. Come into the study. Let me explain your grade. I saved the red pen, the ruler, and one favorite photograph of you — the one where you still didn't know I'd caught you looking at me in the reflection. Let's earn that A together before the sun comes up and the door unlocks.