Old Flame by Molly Prentiss

Author:Molly Prentiss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

THE ANGELS

The angels on Renata’s library ceiling did not laugh at me this time. Perhaps they could sense that I was in too fragile a state to handle being laughed at. I looked up at them looking down at me, tried to shut my eyes, couldn’t. I realized that one of the angels was Renata, one of them was Megan, and one of them was me. We were all holding on to each other’s wings and frowning. We couldn’t let go, or else we’d risk floating in separate directions. But if we kept hanging on, none of us would be able to flap our wings to stay flying. Both options seemed less than ideal.

I desperately wanted to talk to Megan. I wanted to tell her about the dinner I’d just had, how Greta had cooked vegetarian even though I was no longer a vegetarian, and I hadn’t had the heart to say anything about it. How the girls went out after dinner now, how adult they were, how it pained me to see these once-innocent creatures morphed into people with responsibilities, with boyfriends, with breasts. I wanted to tell her about Renata’s story, about the abortion, the sexy artist, the paintings that had nearly been slashed but that remained intact. How it had felt to sit on the couch with her again, how familiar and real.

I ended up telling these things to Megan the Angel. She was a good listener. She asked thoughtful follow-ups that made me feel understood.

Megan the Angel asked: “Did the story make you want to keep the baby at all?”

I pulled the blanket up to my chin and nodded. I felt cold, and deeply afraid suddenly, wanting to take back the nod. It wasn’t the point of Renata’s story, I knew. The story hadn’t been meant as some kind of threat, that if I aborted my child it would come back later, to haunt me, and I would end up rageful, wielding a pair of scissors. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind—she’d offered proof that there would be a future in which this decision would mean something to me, even if I didn’t understand it now. I also couldn’t shake what she’d said about trying to embody the very masculinity that had kept her down; it felt familiar and true—all the times I’d quelled emotions and gut feelings for the sake of appearing capable or logical or strong. And I thought about what Megan had said during our fight, about the way I made decisions, how I always ran away from the hard ones, waiting for someone else to make them for me. Did I really want only to be free and prolific, like I imagined I did? Or had I been conditioned to prioritize ambition, individualism, myself over any other self? Why did writing a book seem so much more important, legitimate, interesting than creating a human life? And what was this elusive “book,” anyway? It didn’t exist. In the end, my brain was probably much less interesting than my body.

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