My Son, My Son

by Kathleen Gerard

About the Author: Kathleen Gerard writes across genres. Her short stories have been widely published in magazines, journals and anthologies and have been awarded and nominated for many prizes including The Saturday Evening Post "Great American Fiction" Prize, Short Story America and The Mark Twain House Humor Prize.

Excerpt

It’s amazing how one trip downtown to fetch one measly letter can spoil a person’s whole week.  And that’s exactly what happened. The minute I pulled in front of the Towanda Falls Post Office, I was more than a little peeved to find a shiny, new, four-by-four angled over the lines, taking up two whole parking spaces—including the handicapped one. Why, that slick, gas-guzzling SUV had a dealership price sticker still slapped on the passenger’s side window, a big red bow festooned over the front grill and a shadow looming around the rearview mirror.

The nerve, I sneered, forced to keep driving round and round that parking lot, looking for an empty space. I finally just gave up and parked in no man’s land on the far side of the lot. Once I got out of our old Ford pickup, my grumbled protest was as loud and creaky as the sound of my slamming the rusty door closed.

I hung my purse over my walker and, as I hobbled across the parking lot, I squinted my eyes, trying to get a better look at that rudely parked vehicular monstrosity. There was something inside, looped over the rearview. It was too broad a shadow to be a set of Holy Rosary Beads. And it wasn’t square-shaped enough to be a couple of fuzzy dice. By the time I cupped my hands around my face and saw my fed-up breath fogging up the driver’s side pane of dark, tinted glass, my eyes deciphered the shadow as a pair of itty-bitty baby booties hanging like two stubby links of sausage like you’d see down at the butcher shop.

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