Member-only story
Fiction on Lit Up
Museum of their Lives
A short story
A splintered ladder led to the attic space she’d come to despise. Returning there for a moment meant leaving forever. The half-filled bag weighed heavy on her heart. Still, she must climb the ladder to reach the museum of their lives — a place her husband had lately buried.
To that woman, he was the answer to a question; a prophet of words, woven together with a keen tongue. To her, he was not at home. He had left days ago, but also a week ago and, then again, years ago. Had he ever been there, with her? His absence marked the passage of time, her presence was no longer desired. People, like objects, can also be replaced.
She lifted boxes, bags, and dusty sheets, and memories pulled back. The suitcases they took on honeymoon were now crusted for want of care. A crib rocked, unused. Managing a smile, she decided to claim the space she hated; the one they had curated over the years. With him, now without.
Stay here, she thought; the mad woman in the attic.
She placed her clean belongings onto the dusted floor; resting her case. Below, the front door’s latch clicked simultaneously with the attic’s hatch — the ladder finding a new home above, with her. A splinter clung to her hand but she flicked it away. It landed somewhere in the darkness.
Above, one body receded. Below, two sets of footsteps advanced.
Rachel Palmąka Mace is a literary fiction and creative non-fiction writer, artist, spoken word performer, lapsed academic, and feminist. She is also the editor of the feminist-led magazine Subtle Sledgehammer. Her ongoing project ‘Around the World with Eighty Women’ (AW80W) — which shares women’s narratives from Somalia to Scotland — began publication in the Summer of 2024.
