Catching Flies
Emily Ethridge

I am in it for the wedding: the lace and white and cake, so many flowers it chokes the church. A skyscraper cake and thin glasses of champagne and Christmas lights stringing around the ceiling and the long white perfect dress I earned.

Here are some things my mother told me: Men are worthless, men are like bugs. And: Your wedding day is your special day, and you will never be that happy ever again. Also: You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Every day I am an open jar full of honey, lid unscrewed. It doesn't matter how many flies fall in and crawl out, as long as just one sticks, then drowns. Most flies come in the summer. I would like a May wedding.

Finally, one's six feet finally stick. He is brown, Indian. The gods in his house have tusks and multiple limbs. My mother's face scrunches and pales. Wrinkle-nosed, she tells me there will have to be a new boy.

But I get the Indian wedding: reds and blues and a sparkle glued between my eyes and gold threading through my dress. The wedding lasts all summer. It lasts until the moon yawns down and I reach and pick it like a coin off the sidewalk. Then the boy and I leave on two white elephants.

Our house becomes a house with a daughter. We plant an apple tree in the yard the day she is born. They both are brown and they both grow fast but the tree is always taller. It grows small sour apples and tire swings she swings in.

Here are some things I tell my daughter: Be careful. And: Wash the apples before you eat them. Also: You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar but you are still catching just flies.

One afternoon the apple tree is taller than all the other trees and my daughter grows up when she walks home from school and following her sidewalk shadow is this pale woman. Together they elope to Arizona but come back and live in the apple tree. I get no wedding to plan, no grandchild. So the apple tree shakes down to me a new child, a boy. I wanted another chance at a girl but I take him anyway.

Some things I tell the boy: Don't play near the apple tree. And: Hold your tongue. Also: Nothing will last longer than how long I will love you.
The day I buy him his first pair of shoes he runs away. The day I put the man I married into the red-crossed white building, the boy calls. One word: Boston. Then the phone clicks off.

The man stays to sleep in the red-crossed building for months. My daughter and the woman sleep curled together in the apple tree, the boy sleeps under bricks in Boston. I stop sleeping anymore. But there, look how the moon blankets everyone's blankets. See how we all lie in the same bed.

© Emily Ethridge