HOW I’M PERCHED ON THE CURB  of the school’s driveway, cheerleading skirt tucked under bare thighs, searching for Dad’s car but it’s been twenty minutes, thirty, forty, and now the football coach checks his watch, the sun sinks behind the gymnasium then we’re in his truck, my knees bouncing, nervous chatter, long silences broken by sorrys after he says his wife’s warming their anniversary dinner, then I’m home slamming the front door, mom’s face a confused blur when I stomp upstairs yelling Dad forgot me, wiping tears as I crouch in the corner of my dark closet where I stash the cookies, the chips, the horde I gulp in whole bites I don’t taste, just stuffing and swallowing, then I’m in the bathroom locking the door before I turn up the music and let the Eagles’ Heartache Tonight drown out the retching, the gagging, the flushing, then I splash cold water on my face and press an ear to the door to listen to the sharp staccato of voices arguing in the foyer, echoing on the high paneled ceiling, and no matter how many times I hear Dad say to Mom I’m sorry okay? I sent my employee to pick her up but I guess I forgot the name of her school, I can’t stop thinking how his words sting like the fire in my esophagus and I turn to study my face in the mirror, and I lean closer to get a better look at my freckles and my green irises, memorable traits I’m thinking, and that’s when I remember the day Dad introduced me to his secretary but couldn’t remember how old I was or what grade I was in and he laughed but his secretary didn’t, and now Mom’s downstairs yelling about how he gave her a check for her birthday, not a gift but a check and who does that, and I’m just thirteen but even I know that’s screwed up, and then the door slams, and my eight track ends, so I pop in Barry Manilow and eat the last three Oreos one layer at a time, dragging my teeth across the creamy center, whispering to Barry “forgetting is something I’d never do,” and I never do, forget. •





Tracie Adams, retired educator and playwright, writes from her farm in rural Virginia. She is the author of two memoirs, Our Lives in Pieces (2025 IAN Book of the Year Finalist) and Not Finished Yet (2025 BookLife/Publishers Weekly Prize Finalist).  Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, longlisted for Wigleaf Top 50 and published widely in over 100 literary magazines including Hippocampus, Cleaver, Pithead Chapel, Stanchion, and Fictive Dream.

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