‘Things You Can’t Show Your Husband’ by Stephanie Johnson

(or, how you never fully know a person)

In Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, your favourite scene is Hero’s
wake. All black and white. Long, mournful faces and thin pillar candles.
It makes me homesick, you tell him. For what, morgues?
He tries to be funny. California. Look. There. See?
In the corners of the screen, there are oleanders. They are slim like
his last cigarette. The white-silver discs of round leaves shiver in the
warm Santa Ana winds. But you can’t show your husband cracked
sand pies from twenty-three years ago. Your favourite taco stand where
your mother would take you when it was just you and her
went out of business when you were seventeen. He can’t climb the thick,
splinter-giving pines of the hill in your backyard. Someone
else lives there now. He says, we should visit sometime. Stay with my
cousin Berto and his partner. They just bought a house outside San Francisco.
Yeah, you say, I’ll take you to the Golden Gate Bridge and the tree you
can drive through, silently adding, the tourist stuff.
You’ll try to pretend your limbs haven’t memorised the Pacific air.

From issue #5: autumn/winter 2017

About the Author
Stephanie Johnson is the Editor-in-Chief of The Passed Note, a YA lit mag. She recently received her Masters in Writing from Lenoir Rhyne University. Her work has been published by Parenthetical and Penny, among others. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her seven bookshelves.