Expiration Date by Eric Wilson

Shanique was still full of smiles, with cash in her pockets and two beautiful children.
    Mylisha spread the newspaper on the sink’s edge, massaged hand cream into her skin as she weighed the words for the day. Curiosity skirted her faith, flitting through her head and poking at her fears.
    “It’s good advice, that’s all,” she whispered. “Nothing wrong with that.”
    “Gotta think about yourself,” Shanique cajoled. “You help plenty with the kids, sure ’nuff. And I’m grateful. But look at you, Mylisha. You ain’t gettin’ any younger. You think I don’t know whatcha done for me? In high school? At the district meet?”
    A twitch tugged at Mylisha’s lower eyelid.
    “You was the sports
goddess,
” cooed Shanique. “Basketball, softball, high hurdles—you did it all. But you gave me dat last race. You let me win.”
    “Shanique! Why would you say such a thing?”
    “You know it’s da truth. Mama’s tried awful hard to teach me, but I never was no good at no schoolwork. You was just tryin’ to help, givin’ your li’l sister a chance.”
    “Why do you insist on sounded uneducated? You’re not stupid.”
    “Maybe no, maybe so.”
    “We both know better.”
    “I done learned to survive my own way, okay?”
    “There’s so much more you could do if you’d set your mind to it.”
    “Ain’t got it in me, baby. I wasted my scholarship,
your
scholarship. I let you down. You think I don’t know dat? Was I s’posta keep turnin’ to you for handouts? No, I had to figure things out myself. Day I got back from UCLA I thought you was gonna kill me for sure. I woulda deserved it, for real, for real.”
    “I didn’t let you win.”
    “Deny it all you want, but I know whatcha did. Guess I owe you a thanks.”
    Protected by the locked bathroom door, Mylisha faced her reflection in the glass. When she blinked, tears streaked her cheeks like raindrops on tilled earth, silver droplets spilling from her lips, from her chin.
    “I didn’t let you win,” she repeated. This time she was speaking to herself.

    The phone was a concrete slab in his hand. Clay had sped home on his lunch break, hoping to save a few bucks on lunch, hoping to get through to Jenni who worked from her condo on Fridays, billing clients. When she failed to answer, he listened to her message machine and issued a quick hello.
    “Hope things’re going good for you guys. Love you, Jason, little buddy. Can’t wait for you to come visit. Give me a call if either of you feel like it, okay? Have a good weekend.”
    The one-sided exchange left him empty.
    He stood holding the phone in one hand, the refrigerator door in the other. Longnecks called to him from the lower shelf, but the condenser kicked in, interrupting, and he settled for bean and cheese burritos. Anything else required kitchen skills.
    While the microwave hummed, he wondered if his son had been listening at the phone? Had Jenni been standing there, insisting he ignore the call?
    Or was she somewhere else? With someone else?
    If only I could go back and …
    “Stop beating yourself up,” a church deacon had told him a month ago.
    “It’s my fault though, a good majority of it. The stuff between Jenni and me, that’s bad enough, but now Jason has to pay for my mistakes.”
    “God’s sovereign,” came the flat reply.
    “You mean God wants this to happen? He doesn’t mind if my family falls apart?”
    The deacon spread his arms over two of the chairs lining the Cheyenne chapel. “He has a reason for these things. It’s not our place to ask why. I hear you’re going back to Oregon, is that true? Well, it’s the right decision, Clay, and it keeps the sickness from touching others in the congregation. Trust God’s plan, and move on.”
    “The sickness?”
    “God hates divorce. You know what I’m saying.”
    No, Clay didn’t know. Was
he
the sickness? Didn’t God cure sickness? The memory of the interaction stoked his fury. So what was the plan? If anyone was