Amelie Prusik’s “Infrangible”
A new story by alumnus Amelie Prusik (fiction, ’12) appears online in Latern Journal:
School ends, the chattering days go back into their box. Outside my office the long hall empties of girls then fills with June light. I’m grateful for the time off without knowing how to fill the empty squares on my calendar. For once, I’m not signed up for any graduate classes; the lack of something to look forward to feels first like serendipity, later like a mistake.
Pierce wants me to come home for June and July, to spend time with our mother in the large, loosed-framed house on Jefferson Avenue. Mother is failing, although Pierce won’t give me any specifics other than to repeat, Say you’ll come, for Eulalie. Pierce and her husband Grady bought the house so Mother could come live with them should the need ever arise. Four years ago the need arose; now Eulalie occupies a commodious apartment over the garage. Having my mother and sister live together feels like a conspiracy—a covert project—to make me feel excluded form what is left of our family. We started with five. Now, with our father dead and my brother Toby living in an SRO in San Francisco, we are down to three.
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