The three of us always sat at my kitchen table: 
June, my sister-in-law who’d lived 
with me since my brother died –  
an unrelated vehicular homicide  
driving home late from Dallas – and  
Cori my next-door neighbor who’d won  
over my friendship with her grandmother’s 
pie recipes and her addiction to gossip.  
My mother always said I should remember 
good company: she’d say, “it comes 
not too regular in our lives, Denise”.  

The boys’ ball practice 
ran over this evening 
(As if the coaches were the ones 
staying up the extra hour 
to do the washing). So I  
poured three glasses of water, 
lit up the last cigarette in the pack, 
and used the dirty dish next to the sink 
as an ash tray because I couldn’t be  
bothered to pull out the one from the den. 
June is distressed. Autumn isn’t 
getting along with the girls in her classes 
and now there’s the whole question of  
team fees for the new season. And to  
be frank I just can’t care tonight. 
It’s not that I’ve forgotten my mother’s 
words or spent too long at work or 
listening to my friends complaints. The  
truth is I just can’t be bothered.  

Instead, I just let my eyes wander to the 
knife left on the table from supper  
and give my best attempt at not 
thinking at all. The day had taken too  
much out of me and life always seems 
to demand too much from me. As a child 
the red headed girl at school always had  
cut marks from a knife, if I was guessing, 
like this one. I never felt the need 
to feel pain like that. These days I 
wonder why I didn’t.  
The two of us 
weren’t much different.  
We had after all  
a father, a mother, a brother, 
and (judging from the metal 
lunchbox that was always full 
with moon pies and turkey sandwiches)  
neither of us lacked food on the 
kitchen tables we grew up around.   
But really these thoughts are 
a waste of time. The buzzer’s  
going off on the machine and  
I need to move the clothes to  
the drying line.  
I really hope 
it doesn’t rain tonight.