Cathryn Grant

Honorable Mention: 2007 Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Contest

All my life I’ve washed dishes. No matter how bruised or bloody my face was, no matter how steamy the weather. I wash the dishes every night after dinner. Every morning after breakfast and again at noon.

Soap bubbles cling to the bony backs of my hands as I stand at my kitchen window, washing dishes. I like seeing my hands disappear beneath the white froth of soap foam and I like the slick surface of the plates as the grit slides off. I love the hot water, making my skin supple like it’s melting on the backs of my hands, then leaving them dry and thirsty for a squirt of the yellow lotion I keep in a giant bottle right next to the bottle of pearly white dish soap.

My hands look old. All the flesh is gone, or so it seems. Not like the plump soft skin that covers the backs of my granddaughter’s tiny hands. Such soft baby hands, I was only allowed to hold them once. Stroke that rose petal skin, inhale that sweet, untarnished scent. But I don’t think about her. Don’t wonder where she is, how old, what her hands look like now. I don’t waste time imagining whether she looks like Jack, whether she has my gray eyes.

©2007 Cathryn Grant