American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 67

49 • FI CTION

He calls Mother “Your Mother.” He calls my sister “Toots” and
he calls me “Sweetheart” or, sometimes, “Tough Cookie.” He calls
Marky “Pooch.” So who is “Honey”?
When Mother asked me to go with her to the farmer’s market,
I said I wanted to help my father in the basement, but when I went
down to his workroom he was just puttering, not building anything,
so I came upstairs to do my homework. Then I realized I didn’t
have this week’s math assignment, so I went to the phone in the
upstairs hall to call Molly because she wrote it in her notebook.
Our phone doesn’t have that little button that lights up when the
phone is i