When She Was Seventeen By Margaret MacInnis

 She used to hum while she swept the linoleum floor in the kitchen, infant in one arm, broom in the other. 

“Give me the baby,” I’d say. “Use both hands to hold the broom.”

She’d laugh. “Wow, that’s so much easier.” Her laughter, light and tinkling, made me laugh too. 

She was only seventeen, a wife and mother. She believed in me, in the promise I made to love and honor. She hadn’t yet imagined that I’d slip off my wedding ring and stuff it in my pocket, the way I did when I went to bars in neighboring towns, where they didn’t know me, where they didn’t know her. 

The ring jabbed into my thigh when I sat at the bar, when I bought a stranger a drink and then another. 

 Margaret MacInnis writes and raises her daughter in Iowa City. She is currently working on a novella-in-flash, LIFE AS JAKE, MY WIFE'S THREE-LEGGED CAT 

Here is a link to my first JAKE flash: http://ghostparachute.com/issue/june-2021-issue/life-as-jake-my-wifes-three-legged-cat/