By Anne Anthony

After my mother died, I pretend she lives in the Cape Cod home where she raised me, ten hours north, sitting in her chair by the bookcase, her knitting needles looping a strand of wool over one needle, and threading the other for the half-finished comforter spread across her lap; its shades of purple, magenta, and blue, my favorite colors entwined together, and I hope she’ll finish by Christmas.

After my mother died, I imagine her traveling to my home for a visit, and halfway between there and now, she stops overnight at my daughter’s, spending the afternoon drinking tepid tea and eating Twinkies with her great granddaughters, energetic toddlers resistant to naps and time gets away from her so she stays overnight.

After my mother died, I believe she takes the trip she’s been planning for as long as I can remember but which was waylaid when her mother took ill and after she lost her job to someone younger; I imagine her flying across the ocean to Parisian streets, strolling along the Seine, drinking expensive wine and eating exotic dishes in an outdoor café; She spends a lengthy pause before the Mona Lisa in the Louvre to contemplate the mystery of the woman. After a week, she boards a train for Rome, the center of her faith and spiritual home. When she returns, I expect she’ll tell me about the Pope, how he blessed her, how he spoke her name in that accent of his and held her gaze longer than others.

After my mother died, I find her cameo stuck inside a drawer in the guest bedroom left behind from her last visit, and when I reach for the phone to tell her I found it, I remember she wouldn’t answer after 9 p.m., so I wait until morning.

*     *    *

Anne Anthony credits her steady diet of comic books for her ardent belief in superpowers. She’s published in Bull, Flash Boulevard, Flash Fiction Magazine, Longleaf Review and elsewhere. Her micro-fiction, It’s a Mother Thing, was nominated for Best Microfiction 2024 by Cleaver Magazine. She released a short story collection, A Blue Moon & Other Murmurs of the Heart, in 2019. She is a senior editor and art director for Does It Have Pockets. More here: https://linktr.ee/anchalastudio.