Breakfast in Bed by Erin Jamieson

Not Stopping to Smell the Roses by Paul Vasques

Now Mama is the child. She asks me for iced water, tells me there’s someone in her closet, trying to steal her good jewelry. The pearls her mother wants her to wear for her wedding. And, like she protected me, once, I protect her. I do not tell her my grandmother is dead, that her wedding dress is yellowed and the lace is curling like a dead ladybug, or that papa no longer can bear to look at her.

Most mornings, though, she is silent as I serve her the deviled eggs she taught me to make all those years ago. Most mornings she eats little, just enough to keep her alive, then nods back off to sleep until the afternoon.

But this morning she does none of these things. She takes my hand, pointing at the window, where the sun is rising, milky and golden, like a raw egg yolk.

See the sky, she says. It looks like it never ends.

Erin Jamieson holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published in over fifty literary magazines, and her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She teaches English Composition at the University of Cincinnati-Blue Ash College and also works as a freelance writer.