Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty Marta Evans
My mother says when I first saw Niagara I trembled. But I was barely
five, bony and prone to fever, and even she would say I've come a long way
since then. I've had experiences; I have kissed many men and some women
goodnight; I have placed myself before a number of national monuments. Five
years after I trembled, I confidently signed a letter to my pen pal Love you
till Niagara falls! and affixed stickers to the envelope like pools of
sealing wax. Five years after that, I cursed on local TV. Five years after
that, I rode a mean horse through a wet pasture alongside the second or
third love of my life. Five years after that, I stuck a penknife in the palm
of an attacker, who looked at me, betrayed. Five years after that, a psychic
said I'd absorbed my twin before birth; this was the source, she said, of my
lifelong uncertainty, shame, and fear. It felt right at the time. Five years
after that, I updated my résumé. Five years after that, I visited the place
where my great-grandparents had lived hard lives, and I shaded my child from
the sun while we ate persimmons on the street. Five years after that, I
cried wildly with a good friend on the floor of a Radisson Blu bathroom. I
felt better later. Five years after that, I made insomniac plans to free a
wolf I liked at the zoo. Five years after that, I looked in a mirror while
high and briefly knew I'd never loved anyone as much as I loved myself. It
stung. Five years after that, I learned of a time my child had once been
desperately sad, and together we climbed an old water tower to see the moon
a little nearer. I told her I don't believe in regrets, which is true, but I
do take too many pictures when a person blows out birthday candles, trying
to catch the one where the wish is made.
Marta Evans has work in or coming from Tin House, Joyland, The Iowa Review and others. She's
currently a fiction fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.
"Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty" is a finalist for the Mythic Picnic Prize in Fiction.
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