A THING by KATH RICHARDS
All We Have
In the aisle with the cereal my mom said I shouldn’t feed my kid, I ran into Monica. Seeing her face, I remembered missing her once a few years ago. She used to laugh so fucking loud.
“How are you?”
“Can’t complain,” I said. Held up the box of regular sized Crunch Berries like it would indicate this very sentiment. “You?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Can’t complain,” she echoed.
This made me unbearably embarrassed. Like she’d just revealed how much of absolutely nothing I had shared with her by saying that, and how little of herself she gave back in return. Is this all I have to give? What the hell is wrong with me that I can give nothing responses to someone I missed once and feed my kid Crunch Berries?
“I’m good,” she added. “I really am.”
Kath Richards (she/her) lives and writes in Utah with her husband and their cat, Cowboy. Twitter: @kath_richards_; Instagram: @kath_richards_writes.