I.
I sweep my porch in the sticky Georgia heat. I sweep, sweep, sweep like the dirt and the stray pine straw and the single bird feather will disappear as easily as the rain drops on my skin. The meteorologist said it’ll be a hot, dumpy kind of rain and the air will cool suddenly. The conditions are ripe for disaster, I think. I know it’s bad because my mother called reminding me to open the windows. She’s afraid I can’t handle a storm, that I’m too far from home now, that I won’t remember what to do. But I do remember. I remember because my second grade class sat on our knees in the hallway with books over our heads while our teacher yelled to keep our eyes closed and my classmates wailed with the sirens and the wind shook the school so violently that I wanted to crawl inside myself. I remember because some things live in our bones.
II.
My son is assigned Homer for his summer reading. On a humid afternoon by the pool he begins the epic poem, but the language and structure are confusing so I guide him through the first book. I tell him that I remember reading Homer when I was his age, and that part is true. Then I tell him I think he’ll like it. That’s the lie. I recall Homer’s particular brand of violence just as easily as I remember endless hallways, confusing locker codes, active shooter drills in the days following Columbine. I remember my freshman literature teacher, Ms. Jackson. She loved cow print and haikus and she was pregnant with her first child. The day I walked into the classroom to find a substitute I asked for a hall pass and spent that period crying in the bathroom, though I didn’t know why.
III.
I think of the impending storm and I think it silly to sweep my porch, so I sit the broom against the brick and take a seat on the faded metal bench that once belonged to my mother. Or maybe it was my husband’s grandmother. Maybe it was just a bench I picked up at a secondhand store so long ago I can’t remember. The bench is blue but it was once yellow and there’s a bird call I register as a Carolina wren, then a firetruck. But it’s the whip of rain, cool against my skin that raises tiny bumps. I think about how my husband and I chose to name our daughter after our grandmothers but my daughter isn’t here and I’m so angry at myself for letting that memory slip in that I want to crack the wooden broom handle over my knees so I stand again and sweep, sweep, sweep and I listen for the wren.
IV.
Years ago I read an article about traces of male DNA found in the genetic make-up of a female. Initially it baffled doctors, but later they learned that she’d born a son and eventually they found that the male DNA inside of her was from him. They concluded there’s a possibility that all mothers carry their babies DNA inside of them forever. The scientists called this bidirectional transfer of genetically-distinct DNA from one person to another a microchimeric transfer. Sometimes when I’m tossing and turning at night I remember that a mother can absorb her baby’s genetic code as easily as she can absorb everything else in the universe and it soothes me.
V.
It’s been thirteen years since I held my daughter in my arms for a few short moments before passing her to doctors, genetic testing, and organ donation. Except she had no viable organs to donate. I didn’t know that when I signed the paperwork that was later passed back to me along with photographs, a make-believe birth certificate, a tiny blanket inside of a box. I thought after thirteen years I wouldn’t remember with such clarity.
VI.
Well into the summer my son muddles through. He tells me stories of winged horses and warfare but all I can conjure is the slaughter of the innocent and a beast part woman, part animal. While I don’t remember what horrific thing the beast does, I remember the horror that’s done to her. I know what’s coming so I smile at my son while he sits next to me, his feet dangling in the water. I tell him he should be proud of himself for getting the hang of it. He puts the book down and dips himself in slowly while the thick air presses into my lungs daring me to breathe.
VII.
The wren calls and I wonder who she’s looking for, if the birds know a storm is coming, if it’s instinctual like the way I still wake in the middle of the night, creep into my son’s room and place a hand on his stomach only to find him feverish. I think about my son, his teenage awkwardness, glasses and t-shirts that are too small, and I marvel at how he walks outside of my body, the cord that connects us stretching, testing limits and patience. Born of cells and skin and a heart pumping wildly to its own rhythm – he is his own being now.
VIII.
Late at night Homer’s creature keeps me awake, sweaty legs wrapped in sticky sheets, tangled. The air conditioning unit hums under my window and for the first time in decades I crave a smoke. I imagine walking into my backyard, sitting alone in the prickly grass and lighting a cigarette. I’d hold it to my lips and inhale the toxicity while the thin paper crinkled and whined. I’d lie back, let the stars lead my mind into dark holes with no end, blinding supernovas. And in the morning I’d tell no one.⠀⠀⠀
IX.
My son joins me on the porch. He’s taller than his daddy now and he’s got hair under his arms and on his chest, wispy blond patches on his upper lip. He holds Homer under his arm, tells me he’ll likely finish it that afternoon, that he suspects it won’t end well. I stop sweeping and the rain starts to fall. I want to tell him about Ms. Jackson. I want him to know how we stood outside on a cool, spring morning waiting for something to happen. Our teachers took roll, gave hugs, assured us that these drills were just temporary. That life would eventually return to normal. But the wren calls and all I can say is that a storm is coming. He laughs; says I’m not a meteorologist just a girl from Kansas. Then he sniffs the air and squints his brilliant blue eyes toward the sky.
X.
The storm comes later than we expect and I lie awake listening to the wind. I imagine the beast; the one Homer calls wicked and savage. She’s a Goddess with the head of a lion and the tail of a serpent; her body is that of a goat and she breathes forth flames. She’s known only as a Chimaera and nothing can be done to save her for her slaughter is foretold in the Heavens.
Melissa’s work has appeared in New Orleans Review, Lunch Ticket, and Moon City Review among others. She holds an MFA from Mississippi University for Women and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She’s an editor at West Trade Review and lives in Atlanta.