Her eyes dance over the seafood tower: trout dip’s on top. Smoky trout like the mountain bookstore brasserie, and doughy crackers I’d prefer saltines over. Uncle Roger taught Mom to microwave them with quartered cheddar cheese slices on top for when I got sick. A safe, aluminum taste, almost like getting your teeth cleaned, like plucking a bit of spine from between them. They’d said the spine would be soft, and it was, but I minded it anyway in the beginning. One day I brought home the good word from the pediatrician’s office: tuna was healthy, and I will be healthy. I still smell the soggy cracker, packed in water, bitten tongue. Far cry from a Key West spire with conch fritter, lime mustard, which she eyes, considering market price. I have just escaped from a fever, she discerningly metes out mignonette. She has never had tuna — it would taint the drawn butter.
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Gabby Kiser (she/her) is originally from the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. Now, she's a PhD student in English at UVA. Her writing has been published in the University of Richmond Messenger, Susurrus, and MudRoom.
