I WOULD MOVE TO MOZAMBIQUE
Katherine D. Stutzman
Now that you are well, I think about you dying. What would I do? I don’t mean this in the grand sense. I’m not asking how I would find the strength to go on. I think about it in practical terms.
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing my teeth, not paying much attention, and suddenly I see myself pulling into my parents’ driveway alone, letting the dog out of the car, handing a suit-case to my father as he helps me carry my things inside. Is that what I would do, go stay with my parents? For how long? Or, if not my parents, maybe my brother in Rhode Island?
On another day, I walk to the library to return a book. It’s a short route that I’ve walked many times. I look in the windows of other people’s houses and wonder whether I would sell our house if you died. Would I want to keep living in it? Would it feel too big for me to stay in by myself? Without your income, could I afford to keep it? I didn’t think these thoughts, not even once, while you were sick.
Walking up and down the aisles of the grocery store, it occurs to me that I might not stay in Boston if you died. You are the one whose job is tied to this place, after all. Would I move? I could go anywhere. I am not old. I keep shopping. I buy a tub of yogurt, and a box of my favorite cookies because they’re on sale.
I bring the bags home and you help me unload. “All the bananas were really green,” I say. “I got the best ones I could.” You’ve gotten in the habit of making smoothies for breakfast.
“They’ll be fine in two days,” you reply, and you have not died and you are now no more likely than anyone else to die anytime soon. You need the bananas for your smoothies, and the yogurt too.
Katherine D. Stutzman’s stories have appeared in Harvard Review, Passages North, As-cent, and The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners.