When she came to live with me, my mother spent most of the day in her green velvet chair, which the movers had placed in the guest bedroom, along with some of her other favorite items – framed photos, her bookshelf, a lamp shaped like a teapot. The rest we put in storage.
She had bought the chair at Bloomingdale’s years ago. Button-tufted with birchwood legs and Victorian flair, it was the color of an olive in a dirty martini. Sometimes she sat and read the paper, but mostly she stared into space, trying to remember.
Do you want to go to the mall, I’d ask. To the supermarket, Target, the park, the movies, out to lunch, for a drive, on a walk through the neighborhood? All met with the same glazed stare, like she was the sole survivor of a plane that had crashed on an unfamiliar planet. I worked from home but tried to make time for her, to coax her from where she was hiding.
Finally, I dragged the chair outside, where it sat on the grass, an uncertain remnant of a bygone age. The back lawn was fenced. She sat there in her bathrobe, too exhausted for the usual niceties about the weather. Wrens flitted through the maples, cocking their heads in puzzlement. My bee balm returned, fluffy red stalks wobbling in the breeze. At night, I moved the chair under a soffit, where rain and the sprinklers couldn’t reach.
One afternoon, I went to tell my mother that lunch was ready and she wasn’t there. The chair was empty, save for a blue jay pecking the velvet determinedly, convinced worms lurked underneath.
I ran to my car, scoured the surrounding blocks. Mom, I shouted from the open windows. No answer except for a few lawn guys who gave me the stink eye. I didn’t want to involve the police. Wasn’t sure what she’d do if an officer approached. Finally, I pulled over and resumed the search on foot. It hadn’t been that long. I’d brought her more tea at 11 and it wasn’t even noon. Who was I kidding? It was way too long. Panic tickled my throat, like I’d swallowed a dragonfly. I’d made her wear one of those bracelets with her name and my address on it. But who would see it? She wasn’t a lost dog, where people checked the collar.
I started to run aimlessly, down cul-de-sacs and courts, sprinting past houses whose eyes were like vacant windows. I ran until I couldn’t take another step. Screaming Mom Mom Mom Mom. Then I heard a sound I recognized. Laughter. The gate was open. Beyond it, a swing set. Two figures on the swings. A girl of about five, with pigtails. And my mother. Her feet were bare, her chin tilted back. Arching her body away from me, she launched herself toward the sky.
Beth Sherman
Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in over 100 literary magazines, including Flash Frog, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024, and she won the Smokelong Quarterly 2024 Workshop prize. A multiple Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net nominee, she can be reached on X, Bluesky or Instagram @bsherm36.
