The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

What We Don’t Forget Diane Payne Fifty years later, for no particular reason, I remember how I’d be sitting on the front steps and two neighbor girls would walk past, holding their noses, as if the stench emanating from me would make them ill. Fifty years later, I remember how my mother once stepped outside and said, “You girls keep holding your breath like that, you’ll end up dead.” Fifty years later, I remember the day when one of the neighbor girls removed her hand from her nose to say, “Your mom’s gonna die from cancer.” Fifty years later, I remember pulling back the girl’s pinky, slowly, while saying, “She’s not gonna die.” Fifty years later, I wonder if her finger is arthritic, slightly misshapened, unable to fully extend. The Meadow 91