Inheritances

My brother tells me he wants to save me
from the shock of finding out what’s in Ma’s will.

Do you want me
to read you what she said?

His phone voice holds
concern as if he were the big brother and I
the fragile bird of a sister who will buckle
under the weight of our mother’s words.

Tell me.

He clears his throat, breaking up the embarrassment
of phlegm and having to state into being: I have two

natural born children, neither of whom are my
inheritors. I laugh. It’s an inappropriate laugh.

She even knows how to get you
beyond the grave he says.

There’s more he says.

I hear a sad melody tromboning
in his voice. Continue I say. A pause, a rustle

and then. I leave my son twenty thousand
dollars. I say Bubby’s crying from beyond.

He says I’ll split it with you.

But there is no splitting an inheritance
from a mother who despises her own daughter,
the daughter who left the south to move west

And the mother saying, That’s so far

And the daughter thinking
That’s not far enough.

Bliss Goldstein’s been published in HuffPost, LA Times, Judith Magazine, and CALYX Journal, winning their Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing. She taught writing at Western Washington University and has an MLA from Stanford University. If she’s not working on her novel drawn from real life “Cult Momma,” she’s most likely hiking in the Pacific Northwest woods among owls, raindrops, and fluorescent fungi. Find more bliss at blissgoldstein.com.

Featured image “Love our new phone” Uploaded by Nate Steiner to be licensed via creative commons 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.