Dapper in a topcoat and tails, feet moving fast and graceful as birds skimming still waters, he whirled and swooped, catching my mother, still young and slim, by the waist, bending her backward. She ... [+]
Susan Norman is a fiction writer from Dallas, Texas. She teaches at The University of Texas at Dallas and Southern Methodist University. Her short stories have appeared widely in print journals and online. She recently completed her first novel. "Saudades" is on Short Circuit #01, Short Édition's quarterly review.
For AmyEmilio's mother was long-practiced in the art of summoning a saint. For a burn, she'd appeal to the apostle John. It was John who got the call twice a day for a year when Emilio was only three. His mother had left him alone in the kitchen, a dishtowel tied around his neck to catch the canjica she'd made for their breakfast. It simmered over a low flame. A noise at the front door pulled her away. Emilio remembers this day in flashes: his mother's bare ankle, a sharp hoot of laugher, a shrill rebuke, a sliver of his father in a doorframe, only just returning from the night before, black b