Per Contra
Summer 2007
Fiction
Palomar by Jennifer Anthony
“I sometimes need to Change, Marisol. Just like Papí. And you know that, so why did you ask me, of all people?” Paloma eyeballed the couch, wishing above wish she could lie down on it to ease the jabs of pain shooting up her legs. Or that she could slip outside, close her eyes, flap a little, and propel herself into the air.
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Five Reasons You Shouldn’t Read Your Mother’s Diary by Cheryl Chambers
"Your mother never writes about your father. You can't figure out how she's lived with him for twenty years (and counting!) and never once mentions him."
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Postcards From November by Liesl Jobson
"A week ago she swallowed six painkillers, vomited immediately, then told me. I checked her colour, her pulse rate. Through the night I listened to her breathe. I called the psychiatrist in the morning, setting up an appointment. I complained to the head teacher. The school told her father about the graffiti, the overdose. Then he phoned threatening: to take her away, to get a court order, to bring the police."
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Engorged by Leonard Kress
“Look,” she sounds desperate, as if issuing a peremptory command, “my milk supply’s way up. Jaclyn’s just finished a growth spurt. I’d ask your baby or even Susan to do it, if they were here--except Susan’s allergic to milk. At least she’d understand how painful all this is.”
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Happiness Runs by Lesley C. Weston
"Mama laughed but it was one of her bad kinds of laughs, like she wanted to cry but choked it back. She grabbed my arm again. “Why did you do that?” Her voice got louder and she leaned toward me, staring at me as if she was trying to see inside my head. “Why did you pinch him?"
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