68 Mill Pond Lane by Mila Pantelides Sola

68 Mill Pond Lane, the house of stained doilies and grape leaves. I used to lie on the cold tile in the kitchen while she cooked. When I was older, she let me play in her bedroom. It smelled like mold and rotting fruit; her carpets were damp and sour. She let me play with her jewelry and snuck dollar bills into my little fists. When I got bored with her bedroom, I would trace my way down the hall, dragging my fingers across the dingy porcelain wall of the shower in the upstairs bathroom, where I would scrub myself for hours and never feel clean.

68 Mill Pond Lane, 900 square feet of things I didn’t understand, like the tremor in her voice when she spoke. I pictured her vocal cords trembling like her hands did when she taught me how to open pistachio shells at the kitchen table, dropping them into a little wooden box. Then there was the fridge, covered in magnets and letters from the aunt I never met. I didn’t know her face, but I had memorized her big, loopy cursive from hours of tracing it with my fingers.

68 Mill Pond Lane, and when December came, I would sit at the Nativity set in her front yard. I used to hum and peel the moss off baby Jesus, scratching my fingernails on the rough gray stone. I did this while the adults were talking. I would find anything to escape the boredom of listening to words I couldn’t understand from underneath the kitchen table. I’d cradle myself against the oak and count pistachio shells until it was time to go.

…

It’s been a long car ride home from the church. My fingers rub the folds of a stained white doily. I clutch the ridged surface of a small wooden box, pistachio shells rattling each time we go over a bump. When we finally pull into the driveway, I open the door and dry heave before going to my room to slip off the black dress and tights.

Mila Pantelides Sola is a seventeen-year-old writer from Boston, Massachusetts. She loves writing poetry, flash fiction, and short stories. She has previously had her work published in DePaul’s Bluebook and her school’s art and literary magazine, Mirage.