Historical Fiction
The Unraveling
of Amelia Fluchter
Spring 1995
The sky is the color of a worn Brillo pad. This is what I’m thinking as I sit in the passenger seat of our Corolla. It is why my mother gnaws away at her non-existent fingernails behind the steering wheel, why backing out of our parking spot and actually heading to a store remains a merely contemplated idea for the past twenty minutes.
My father is dead — another thought that forms unannounced as I consider the tinny sky.
Mother Nature was pissed that day too. Only the world above our heads casts a different hue because it’s a Long Island sky, not a Houston one. Funny how storms can look so different based on where they happen.
No, not funny. Nothing is funny about different skies.
Something else that is not funny: My mother studying my breasts, moving her tiny hand away from her mouth just long enough to suggest touching them.
“We really need to take care of that. I mean look at them, they’re practically falling out,” she says.
I shove her tentative hand away and take pleasure in the wounded expression that crosses her dark eyes. In the back seat, my little brother’s head leans in from the back…
