The three of us sat at the dinner table, TV news a few feet away. Tape up your windows, bring your pets inside. My cat howled at the door and there was no tape on our floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. Nobody talked. Picking at my chicken pot pie, my fork sloshed lumpy white gravy searching for meat, for vegetables. My mother and her boyfriend focused hard on theirs. He slammed his fork on the blue tablecloth. She trembled in a white sweater. The cat circled in front of the door, longing for the safety of the storm outside.
Marie Cloutier (she/her) is a writer investigating womanhood and girlhood, love and loss. Her work has appeared in Bending Genres, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, and elsewhere. www.mariecloutier.com