Member-only story
The Authentic Eclectic
Now That You Know
This wet, salty thing that she held in her hands could have been strung on a wire for a necklace. Or stretched between telephone poles to make a globular, shimmering bird. She wiped it on her jeans.
“You did not know this?” The voice was gentle.
“I knew.” Because the cat had been there since she was born, and last year it was gone. Besides, it was in movies and books and adults talked about it sometimes. But that was alright for other people, or distant relatives; and it was sort of alright for animals, too. Not for sisters.
The androgynous person in the wide-brimmed hat was a stranger. They had inserted themselves in the interval between the hospital staff and her parents. “Give her some time alone,” somebody had said.
But she wasn’t alone. She was with this strange old person.
“So now that you know,” they replied, as though her answer had been its opposite, “what will you do?”
She stared at them, lip trembling, fighting back another bawling fit. But there was something about this stranger that comforted her. It was almost a kind of aura, a cocoon. “Do?”
They wiped a tear from her cheek and brought it to their lips, then blew on it gently. It inflated like a rainbow bubble until it was larger than…
