"Contours" by K. A. Hamilton
Ava blows a raspberry. I blow one, too, and am surprised to see spit on the steering wheel. My fingers feel my lip, but my lip doesn’t feel my fingers. One or the other is in a different dimension, perhaps still at the dentist’s office.
Ava is laughing but I’m on my guard. She’s of an age when first memories are formed. Better a fart joke than sitting in front of the TV, I suppose. Better than one of the times I have to remind her that her imaginary friend is not real. In the rearview I see her tracing the edges of her window stickers. Maybe that will be it. Just the tactile sensation of vinyl on glass, the flash of sunlight through trees.
As for my first memory, it was a unicorn. There was a muddy fair and ladies dressed in corsets. The oldest had the deepest neckline of all and led the unicorn around on a dog leash. It had one weathered horn sticking out of its head, and I couldn’t see the eyes under its shaggy white coat.
She got up close.
“You evah seen one befoh?” The voice was smokey, thick. The memory ends there, spinning like a reel out of tape.
Ava and I are home now, watching TV. We eat snacks for dinner and laze on the couch until it’s time for bed. Some nights she’ll snuggle.
I touch my face again, exploring the lack of feeling. Even if it’s just a small piece of me, it’s good practice for the trillions of years yet to pass in which I will not exist. When Ava will be without me. Or, heaven forbid, me without her. The difference is negligible on a cosmic scale, but feels vast from the couch. Ava is next to me on a nest of blankets and I’m playing with this vastness like a fidget toy. I need to stop.
But I’m doing it, I’m there again. The hospital room where my mom and I part ways. I expect it to happen quick, like unplugging a lamp. But it’s slow. It’s a purpling of veins, a swelling of lids, a mark on her hand because I’m squeezing. But it doesn’t matter anymore. She’s turned into a body instead of my mom.
The next time I see her she's ashes in an urn. I’ve brought a hollow necklace and the venerable crematorium tech is helping me cram a few particles inside. Then we drop the screw that's supposed to seal it shut. I get down on my knees to look while he sweeps the floor with a magnet the size of a kettlebell. We can't find it, so he gives me an apology and a bit of scotch tape.
I really need to get around to replacing that screw… but not right now. It’s bedtime. Time to extract Ava so we can do potties and stories and wind down music. And now she’s asleep and the feeling is creeping back into my teeth.
I pull my mom’s boxes of old photos out of the closet and confirm: definitely not a unicorn. Probably a goat. I find a photo of my dad throwing axes. One of my parents together, Mom’s head resting in Dad’s lap while they watch a jousting match. They look intensely bored, but maybe they’re just trying to act like there’s no camera. And quite a few of an Ava-sized version of me. I’m wearing face paint—a unicorn, of course, but a proper one with rainbow hair and sparkles.
I touch my cheek. It’s time for ibuprofen.
My mom’s last moments, I think, were not of objects or meaning. A light, a sound… maybe a vague sense of “me.” Memories not gained but released. Ava’s heartbeat still fluttered inside of my body then, inside of me, the only witness as one was going and the other coming.
The baby monitor gives a low battery warning, which is how I know it’s time for me to go to bed. Ava is a big girl now and well past needing surveillance. I just haven’t gotten around to putting the habit to rest.
I listen to the tinkle of music over the speaker. In the dark, I run my tongue over my teeth. The filling is rough and unfamiliar. It needs time to wear down, a few days before it starts to feel like a part of me. But we’ll get used to each other eventually. We always do.
K. A. Hamilton (she/her) is an instructional designer from New Hampshire who writes speculative and literary fiction. She earned her MFA in Fiction from the Mountainview Low-Residency Program in 2019.
