Something I Can Do: Stepmother Stories

A grown son comes home wound too tight. A stepmother notices. She sits close tucks a blanket and asks the question that will unmake the house is there something she can do to make him happy.What begins as care becomes hunger with a pulse. In ten different rooms and the quiet that frames them she does not look away. She answers with touch in kitchens garages hotel beds and quiet rooms until morning light.These are not accidents. They are the point slow shameless tactile nights of possession wrapped in the voice a stepmother is expected to use. Quilts. Steam. Coffee gone film-cold. The wet sound of being kept. She asks. He answers with his body. She stays.