My husband's nose changed first—a nearly imperceptible spot-the-difference puzzle on a face I'd known for twenty-two years. Through our kitchen's bay windows, the morning sunlight highlighted his ... [+]
L.N. Hunter's story, "Maggie and Mary," is in Short Circuit #03, Short Édition's quarterly review. Hunter shares an untidy home with two cats and a soulmate, and has been published in the Flame Tree Fiction newsletter, Obscura and Trickster's Treats 3, amongst others.
First thing every day, I count out the same colorful cocktail of medications into Mother's four containers: morning, midday, evening meal and nighttime. Two pink pills shortly after waking up, and another one right before going to bed; two different statins with breakfast; an aspirin in the morning; one tiny blue antacid pill with each meal; and on it goes... The same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that.I woke a few minutes ahead of the alarm and forced myself out of the comfort of my bed, pulled a robe over my nightdress, and prepared for another morning with Mother.Even b