by Sandra Arnold
WHILE HER MOTHER was cooking the pork for Christmas dinner, and her father was snoring on the couch, Evie covered two chairs with a blanket and crawled underneath. Then she began to carefully cut around the photographs she’d found in the family album.
Mum and Dad.
Evie and Scott.
Baby pictures.
Toddler pictures.
First day at school pictures.
She would glue them all on a large piece of cardboard and present them to her family after dinner when everyone was in a better mood. Her parents would exclaim in delight. They would frame the cardboard and hang it on the wall. It would remind them of how cute Evie had been and how her mother used to sew pretty dresses for her. It would remind them of how much she had loved her little brother. It would stop them from…
‘Why aren’t you more like your brother?’
‘Your brother was worth two of you.’
‘Your brother could buy you at one end and sell you at the other.’
‘We aren’t paying school fees if all you can do is fail exams.’
‘Your brother came first in every subject.’
Two more pictures left to stick on the cardboard. One was of Evie with her boyfriend. Taken before he dumped her. Taken before her mother said…
‘When I was your age boyfriends didn’t dump me. I was the one who did the dumping.’
The last picture was Scott with his first and last girlfriend. They were both laughing. Both happy. But that was before…
And by the time she crawled out from her hiding place, holding the complete picture, her family had gone.
oOo
Sandra Arnold’s work includes eight books, including her most recent Below Ground (June 2024), The Bones of the Story and Where the Wind Blows (2023). Her short fiction has been published internationally and received nominations for The Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions and The Pushcart Prize. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Central Queensland University, Australia.
