Unnatural Migration

When Mom flew off with the Canada geese you made me promise that we would never leave one another. Ever. I wanted to protect you, even though you were an irritating baby sister who I had to bribe with candy and pop, so I could hang out with my friends. If I was away too long I’d find you on the porch when I got home, tears running your cheeks while you asked about Mom.

Mom showed up a couple times a year when she flew through heading north or south. She knew Dad kept a shotgun in the closet by the door, so she’d call from a payphone to make sure he was out. Then she’d honk from the road, just in case. We would run out, but you would always slow down when we reached the ditch. Pretend you were watching the ducks swimming in and out of the big culvert. Made Mom get out of the car, waddle over to corral you, and then shoo us both toward the car.

She’d push us into the back seat and give us gifts, t-shirts, often the wrong size, stuffed in crumpled paper bags, pretending they were brand-new, but they didn’t have labels and early on you figured out they were from the charity shop one town over.

She’d drive us to Nelly’s Diner, park at the back, and watch us eat grilled cheese sandwiches, while she nibbled away at a bowl of greens, until you pointed out the window toward the big loose ball of dust rolling like a tumbleweed down the gravel road at speed. “Mom look, I bet that’s Dad coming to find us.” Then Mom would peck our cheeks, say her goodbyes, wing it through the kitchen and out the backdoor, while I refused to let you squirm out of the booth to follow.

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press 2021), contributing editor at NFFR, and is included in Best Microfiction 2024 & 2026. Her writing/photos appear in variety of journals and anthologies. http://louellalesterblog.wordpress.com