E.J. Schwartz

The Orchid

You’re nineteen the day you receive a check in the mail—your coffee black as ink, your cat fat and curled in your lap like soft serve. Lips closed around a steel mug, you gurgle and spit as you process the check, the familiar loop of the G’s, the unmistakable I’s dotted with stars. It’s from Aunt Marie, along with a periwinkle sticky note: "I’d rather see you enjoy this while I’m alive then leave it for you later." Aunt Marie, who recently underwent a double mastectomy for her stage two breast cancer, is your very own godmother. The number on the check reads twenty thousand dollars and your cat sleeps through your warm trickle of rain, the clouds in your eyes. That night, you dream of twenty thousand knickknacks from the Dollar Tree and of actually buying a house. In the morning, you can’t choose what to do and so you wait.