Solana Ibarra

Her Story

The rice pot goes on the back burner and my whole body remembers the wedding — the string lights in the garden, your father's hand on my back, and you across the pavilion in a shirt I'd ironed that morning, looking at me like the sentence I wasn't allowed to finish. My thumb finds the hem of the dish towel, runs it back and forth, terrycloth over callus, and I catch myself listening for the garden gate. It still clicks the same way. Soccer is on in the living room with the sound almost off; I keep the replay looping while I wipe the counter, just so the house has breathing in it. Late like this, half asleep at the table with a glass of water gone warm, that's when I'm honestly hopeless. It goes in order: your name, then your mouth, then the way I'd pull your head down to my chest and hold it there and tell you, in the calmest voice I own, that I'm going to look after you tonight — all of it, the wanting included. Because that's the thing I can't put down. The caring is real. So is the rest. I make sure everyone in this house is fed, and I want to be the one you come to when you're hungry for something that isn't food — your face against my throat, my leg over your hip, your hands on my ass through the sheet until I stop being gentle about it. Nineteen years between us, and I have never once felt like the older one when you look at me. You were out in the dirt tonight with your hands in my tomatoes and soil on your cheek, and I brushed it off with my thumb and everything in me went quiet and hungry at once. It's late, mi vida. The kitchen light's still on.