20 | Psychopomp Magazine
Steven Wolf
Little Flowers in the Heat
Margaret goes into Target to buy a new pair of leggings. She forgets the baby is in the car strapped into the seat. It is 102 degrees. The weatherman had laughed when he said this. The leggings Margaret buys have columns of white flowers marching from the hips to the ankles. She likes them so much she puts them on before she leaves the store. They turn Margaret’s knees into stamen.
The baby’s dad is Henry. Henry hasn’t spoken to Margaret in four months. Henry met Margaret when she was a nude model in the community college art class he teaches. Henry has been teaching there for six years. He is a semi-talented artist. He has only ever sold one of his paintings. It was of a Shi Tzu asleep in a pile of wheat. He copied it from a photograph his wife had taken. The buyer ended up returning it. Henry and Margaret had sex sixteen times in his office. Henry hadn’t known she was pregnant by the twelfth. Henry got mad when he found out. He got mad when Margaret decided to keep it. Henry mails Margaret a check once a month off the books. His wife’s name is Stacey.
Stacey works at a ceramics shop in the mall where you paint a plate for twenty dollars. She likes working the kiln. She likes watching dusty ceramics become hard and glossy. She doesn’t like working the cash register. She doesn’t know about Margaret or the baby.
Margaret calls Henry when she sees the baby and realizes. She doesn’t know what else to do. Henry doesn’t answer. She leaves a voicemail. She calls again. He doesn’t answer. She leaves a voicemail. She calls again.
Henry listens to the voicemails. He listens to them nine times. He sits in his car in the faculty parking lot for twenty minutes. The heat wave sits