Flash Fiction - Guilt Free

And this one I wrote for the fun of it. It was delicious to wallow in such a world of self-indulgence I'll never know. This is flash fiction (less than 1,000 words).

Guilt Free

It was fudge sauce, thick and cold from the back of the fridge, dipped in gourmet raspberry jam—the kind from France with the understated label—straight onto a spoon and then suckled in my mouth, a frosty mug of milk tremoring faintly in my left hand, to be gulped in indelicate swaths allowing a dribble or two down my front, the first time I hit her.

Not really hit. Shoved. A forceful push. A push that began with contact. The contact of my hand wedging so neatly between her small sharp shoulder blades, wedging in so that I almost could not retract myself from the catapulting force launching her into the tub. Not a hit—there was no smacking, cracking, sharp stinging rebound. No bruise.

She’d laughed. She’d thought it was a game. Like when I clapped my hands together as she went up the stairs, clapping and crowing and chasing her all the way up and around the banister post, and yelling gonna-git-you-gonna-git-you for five more bounding steps till she leaped onto her bed and my tickle monster fingers poked and prodded and she flailed and shrieked, sweaty and whispy-haired, before calming down for pajamas-teeth-potty-story bedtime.

It was a tear-open package of Albanese World’s Best 12 Flavor Gummi Bears, Fat Free Gluten Free, the bears surprisingly pillowy soft and the flavors gently entertaining, like sinking my teeth into what ‘cozy’ would taste like, the first time I marched her from a store authoritatively crushing her hand inside my own, the better to guide her through the Whole Foods parking lot of commuters rushing home with their pre-made dinners conveniently packaged to keep out cold, moisture, and guilt.

Two days later she’d played house on the rug at my feet except this time she added some cars to make a parking lot and then rushed her dolls around telling them to watch out for cars and every single time the little doll stumbled and fell and the big doll scolded her, scolded her in a husky-harsh, barely-audible whisper: bad-bad-girl, bad-bad-girl.

I remembered, once, back four months ago now, that it was Annie’s Gluten Free Cheddar Bunny Tails Snack Crackers during the first social worker visit. I poured them from the package and arranged them in my grandmother’s glass candy dish and set them, neatly, in the center of my dining room table where the design of the lace tablecloth conveniently indicated the precise center could be found. I invited everyone to partake as we passed forms back and forth sign-here-and-here-and-here. The social worker declined every time but the girl, my girl, my brand new foster daughter in my home less than 24 hours girl, she devoured them. Handfuls grabbed and shoveled in while she stood on her seat and leaned over the bowl, one hand moving mechanically from the bowl to her mouth while the other stood braced on the table and slowly shifted the tablecloth away from center under the pressure of her insistent weight.

It was a McDonald’s hot fudge sundae, two orders please, on the way home from The Good-Bye Visit after parental rights were terminated. And me pulled over in the space reserved for cars waiting for a delayed drive-through order even though there was no delay, feeling the glare of the middle-aged woman manning the drive-through window though I could not see her and did not know if she saw me. Then twisting around, pulling off the thin, plastic wrapper from the black plastic spoon with my teeth and spitting that end out toward the floor of my car before mouthing the spoon free from the wrapper so that I could shove that spoon deep into the souping soft serve utterly lacking in the fortitude needed to hold up the hot and heavy fake-chocolate sauce glomed onto its top. Shoving that spoon deep into the puddled mess and then shoving it, shoveling it, I-don’t-care-just-shoving-it into her gaping maw as she wailed and wailed for her mother.

It was macaroni and cheese for her and pot roast with potatoes and homemade gravy for us when we told her. He and I in our places across the dining room table and she in her seat along the side, eating our nice dinner and then telling her, as we’d discussed over the weekend and I’d planned out with a tiny crib sheet tucked discreetly under my napkin, about her new home.

The sushi was fresh and beautiful and the white wine cold and sweet and all of it “ooh!” inducing as we sat, my three girlfriends and I, sat, we ladies who didn’t lunch but mock-pretended we did, the shiny food and sparkly glasses the perfect complement to our pearlescent pink or mauve nails—pearlescent was our nail tech’s new favorite, she called it daytime chic and we said “ooh” on cue. The sun was bright through the window behind me and the sushi shone before me as I told my sad, sad tale to the table. Of course, I’d been madly, madly in love with her and of course I’d wanted to give her a forever home but, sigh, the courts, you know, the system, you know, what can you do? A tragedy. It was.

He found me emptying the pantry. Still full packages of bread and crackers and pasta all going into the kitchen sized trash bags with the built-in drawstring loops. He asked me what I was doing and I turned and looked at him and I did not have words. I looked down at the straining bag resting on the floor beside me and then back up at him. But she’s gone, I said. Yes, he said, but she never ate that stuff anyway, only you did, she wasn’t gluten free. Gluten free? I asked. And I looked down again and saw, this time saw, all those labels on all those packages. Gluten free. Not guilt free. Not guilt free at all.