Flash Fiction by Anne Anthony
When Mona’s Therapist Ghosts Her
My therapist canceled today’s appointment with a form email, not bothering to type in my name, just Dear Client. What the hell? I did my assigned work; created an issues list during the two weeks between appointments. Like she told me. Like a good girl.
– my sister’s upcoming breast reduction surgery (Double D at 15!)
– my husband’s infidelity (maybe)
– my boss’s body odor (God, he stinks)
And then, there’s Stella, my best friend since second grade, and her sudden proclamation of her love for me. I have a lot to unpack.
Mrs. O’Reilly must have known she couldn’t make this session for days, likely weeks, and put off canceling until 33 minutes before. I check her secure email app, the one she’d set up to ensure confidentiality, you know, the whole doctor-client confidentiality thing, and a bundle of error codes display with each refresh. 429 Too Many Requests; 408 Request Timeout; 404 Not Found; 410 Gone. Gone? Gone where?
Something must be wrong with her server. I call her private line, the number she gave me ‘for extreme emergencies only’ after begging on my knees at the end of an especially turbulent appointment until I wore her down, the same way I could wear Daddy down, and she scribbled the number on the back of her business card, made me promise to use it sparingly, but it doesn’t ring, goes straight to where her voicemailbox should be but isn’t — it’s dead air.
Is she fucking ghosting me?
I fling my phone into the wall across the room, grab my car keys, forget I’m wearing pajamas—today sets the all-time record of 8 days without showering—and back down the driveway, nearly run over Fluffy, the neighbor’s Persian cat, drive the ten miles of pothole-ladened back streets—God, she knows how much I hate highways—and pull into the strip mall parking lot near the Frozen Yogurt Pump, and slam the front of my car into a shopping cart.
As I race toward her rented office space, my breasts start swaying—I’d forgotten to strap on a bra—so I wrap the sides of my sweater to secure them as best I can and push the #2 elevator button. I’m humming, I am Woman Hear Me Roar, before breaking into song, singing, no, shouting the lyrics down the long corridor to her office. I’ve got my fist in the air, ready to pound her door, when I hear noise inside, loud rakish cries, ugly crying, the kind my mouth makes. Did she give my time slot to someone else? I lower my arm, put my ear to the door, and listen. My fist loosens.
“I can’t, Bob. I can’t.”
It’s my therapist. Not a client. Something crashes. She’s thrown something. To the floor? The wall? Hopefully that god-awful Dalai Lama wall hanging behind her desk. I step back, wait for the crying to die down some before leaning again against the door. Nose blowing. The squeak of wheels rolling back and forth. Finally, nothing. I turn to leave, before she discovers me, but the silence breaks with an undecipherable screech. I flatten my ear against the door and hear her whisper.
“Just make the arrangements. I can’t. Not for Mama.”
Halloween Photo Contest: Grand Prize Brand New Chevy Suburban
Daddy takes us for a ride after school. Billy and I squeeze in front. I call dibs on the window. Janey, Mark, and Henry slide into the back seat. The handle on the door falls off in my hand again.
“Leave it,” Daddy says. “Won’t be driving this rattletrap soon enough.”
I toss the handle to the floor. Janey, my baby sister, asks, “Where’s Mama?”
“She’s working second shift again,” he tells her, then glances in the rearview mirror. “We’re taking a joy ride, honey. Going to win ourselves a new car.”
She grins a missing-her-two-front-teeth smile, then plugs her mouth with her thumb. I glance out the window, notice the familiar rusted silo in the distance and the barbed wire fence next to the road. We’ve been down Old Wilson Highway before. Stopped for a picnic in a field of sunflowers; the bright yellow flowers, buzzing with bees, towered above our heads. Mama was with us that time. We made it to dessert —brownies with fudge icing — when a gunshot blasted. Daddy told Mama to get us back into the car. We ran quicker than bunnies, except for Janey who stayed on the blanket crying. Mama scooped up my baby sister, carried her on her hip, and left the picnic basket behind.
‘That time in the sunflower field’ became a story we tell ourselves. Billy gets us going with ‘remember the time Mama made brownies, fudge icing so thick it stuck to the roof of my mouth’ — that’d be the part my sweet-toothed brother remembers — and then Henry, he’s the oldest and loves action films, would continue ‘oh, when we nearly got our heads shot off by that farmer?’ We all add our piece, except Janey. She was only three.
Daddy slows the car to the side of the road by that same sunflower field.
“Pretty flowers,” Janey says stretching across Mark, pointing to them.
“Everybody out. And be quick,” Daddy says, and looks at the farmhouse on the hill.
Four doors fly open. My brothers all jump. Daddy shouts to run and stand by the giant oak up ahead. I follow Henry already running behind Mark and Billy. We stand in a line like we always do, tallest to smallest, not necessarily by age. Until this summer, I stood first in line, but Henry grew two inches taller and has taken my place. When Daddy catches up, he starts pulling stuff out of a paper grocery bag.
“Put these on.”
Mickey Mouse, Bat Man, a couple of clowns, and an angel. Halloween masks from last October.
It’s only June now. I put on my mask, keep my questions to myself as I always do when it comes to Daddy. He’s holding his point and shoot camera. A year ago, before his restaurant shut down, he’d take pictures of us nearly every day.
“Now look this way.”
I do as I’m told until I smell something burning and turn around. Thick black smoke shoots up above the sunflowers.
“Towards the camera.”
When I turn back, I notice our family line is shorter.
“Daddy? Where’s Janey?”
He looks past us, drops the lighter from his hand, and runs toward the flames.
Anne Anthony has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine, Five Minutes, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Longleaf Review, and elsewhere. Her microfiction, It’s a Mother Thing, was nominated by Cleaver Magazine for the Best Microfiction 2024 anthology. She is a senior editor and art director for the literary journal Does It Have Pockets. Find her writing here: anchalastudio | Instagram, Facebook | Linktree
Flash Boulevard is edited by Francine Witte. Banner photograph Wes Candela.
Flash Boulevard 