Maureen Aitken
My mother says my father’s 30-pound weight loss is the result of a renewed commitment to his health, and his vague expression I describe is actually the calm brought on by, not gazing out the window, but meditation, something I should consider, and his interest in shoveling snow speaks to his vigor, so I open the window and before she can get up to close it I’m standing outside, in January, next to this man without a coat, shoveling six inches of powder off the flower beds, yelling to the daisies long gone, “I’ll save you” because to him this is merely a freak spring storm from the last season he can remember, from what my mother must see is the wintering of his mind, and what does this woman do but shut the window and leave us both out there with our fingers red and seething in pain, wanting what escapes us now, warmth, acceptance, survival, hope.
Maureen Aitken’s short-story collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, won the Nilsen Prize, Foreword Review’s INDIE Gold Prize for General Fiction, and received starred reviews from Kirkus and the Foreword Review. Two of her stories were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Maureen’s short stories have been published in numerous journals, including The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, and the international anthology, The Bering Strait and Other Stories.
Photo by Hide Obara on Unsplash
