A STORY by EMILY RINKEMA
Sunny Days
We have killed Big Bird, unintentionally, of course, because what kind of sick fuckers would kill Big Bird on purpose? I’m driving, and my husband is just saying shit, shit, shit over and over as if that’s a reasonable coping strategy for an adult. I tell him to pull it together, that we’re going to be back at Judy’s soon, where we’re picking up our five year old daughter, and that I can only have one goddamn little girl in the car at a time, and even though any other day he would call me on such a sexist, condescending reinforcement of feminine stereotypes, as on any other day I would say he should, he takes a few deep breaths and pulls it together.
Big Bird is in the trunk, which in hindsight was a shit idea, but we were late and fighting about my bangs, which in hindsight were also a shit idea, as was asking my husband to be honest about my bangs, which he said was akin to asking him to be honest about my cooking, and I said, who the fuck uses the word akin, and he said, right, which I took to be affirmation of my truth-telling, but he meant as a direction, and when I realized I’d missed the road I just turned onto to Sesame and wham, bird. And we needed to get rid of the evidence, so trunk.
Now we’re going to have to face our kid, who is in a black-and-white justice phase, doling out punishments to us, her friends, her teachers, our pets, oblivious of intention, a three-foot-two categorical moralist who will demand an eye for an eye, will want blood. My husband suggests we stop and get her a gas station hot dog or a pony, that we give her cash, that we keep driving and change our names and leave her with her Aunt Judy, who will make up some lie about where we went. He says we can lie, we can tell her we tried to save him, that we were on the way to the large animal vet when he died in our arms. He says he will cry, that she’ll believe him this time, but he’s desperate, knows he’s never been able to lie to her. She sees right through him, the way he looks to the side, bounces his leg.
I’m really pissed about the bangs still, and I don’t have the same problem he does lying to our daughter. I’m really good at it, in fact. I tell him, relax, don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it, just like I handle everything. I don’t tell him he has yellow feathers on his coat.
Emily Rinkema lives and writes in northern Vermont. Her writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Phoebe Journal, and the Best American Nonrequired Reading and Oxford Flash anthologies. You can read her work on her website (emilyrinkema.wixsite.com/my-site) or follow her on X or IG (@emilyrinkema).