Assistant Editor Lily Davenport: This flash story snuck up on me, transforming from a lighthearted ode to parental friendships that mirror their children’s into a moving exploration of the many forms love can take against the backdrop of an uncertain future. The romance that the story’s two precognitive mothers foresee for their children becomes the catalyst for their own close friendship—which in turn becomes the foundation for a renewed closeness between the narrator and her young daughter.
Listen to “A Certain Love”:
A Certain Love
After we get acquainted at a PTA meeting, we become fast friends—our closeness accelerated by the foreknowledge we serendipitously share: your little third grader and mine are destined to be the loves of each other’s lives. Over long lunches and meandering walks, we hazard guesses about the many unknowns of their eventual romance. I say they’ll start off as friends. You say it’ll be an immediate mutual attraction that later turns stormy. I put my money on their relationship growing the way many plants do: fast at first, then slow and steady. We agree that we’ll be grandmothers to two—maybe three—grandchildren.
Naturally, we also exchange other tidbits about their futures that we’re privy to as the descendants of oracles. My daughter will be the jealous type. Your son will withdraw from everyone during bouts of brooding reticence. They’ll have to endure time apart because of work and passion projects.
Eventually we talk about ourselves. One afternoon when we’re making noodles from scratch in your kitchen, you tell me about how you grew up in a country with vast forests—how it never really felt like home until after you left, then no longer felt like home once you had a family here. Later that week we go rock climbing, and I see in you a future version of my daughter—a woman in direct contact with nature and her elemental self.
Then you go missing, failing to return home after a conference.
“It happens sometimes,” your husband says when I stop by with blackberries I picked with my daughter. “She gets an idea and has to pursue it. Maybe she was really taken by the landscape while driving and decided to do some impromptu backpacking.”
But it’s been a week. Shouldn’t you have at least called by now? I can’t help worrying that something’s happened to you and we won’t get to babysit our grandkids together. Will it be just me teaching them how to ski and make dumplings?
Later, in the shower’s warm spray, I remember what Mom often said: worrying isn’t helpful unless it gets you to do something. So after I’ve toweled dry, I write down everything you told me about your son’s future—a list that ends up being three pages long. I read it over and pick something to start with: There will be times when he’ll be inconsolably upset.
Tomorrow I’ll watch the news with my daughter. The next day I’ll take her to the animal shelter downtown. I’ll encourage her to feel whatever she feels, then tell her that sometimes even though your heart goes out to others, you have to accept the way things are and let time pass. I’ll keep working at it with her until she understands the importance of this. Then I’ll move on to another item on the list. That’s what I can do for our children, whether you’re here or not. Though of course, I’d rather you and I prepare them for their future together.
Soramimi Hanarejima is the author of the neuropunk story collection Literary Devices for Coping (Rebel Satori Press, 2021) whose recent work appears in Pulp Literature, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Offing.
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