Leslie A. Lindsay| Writer & Creative

By Leslie Lindsay

http://www.missourireview.com

Here’s an excerpt from Slippery Slope, my novel-in-progress.  Worked on these revisions this week.  This is from slightly-crazy mom protagonist Annie. 

In the morning when I wake, I slip into the bathroom and pee.  It’s a hard, distended bladder-type of mictruition, the kind that makes you respond with a sigh of ahhh.  My pee smells vaguely strange, complicated, as if an entity other than me is wound into the sterile solution of urea, organic wastes, and salts.  peer inside the toilet bowl.  All looks normal.  I satisfy myself in knowing that urine is one of the most sterile bodily fluids.  You could drink the stuff and be fine.  Not that I would. 

          I walk out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.  At six forty-two on a Friday morning, I am ready for the weekend.  I look at the alarm clock affixed on Joe’s nightstand willing the minutes and hours to tick by quickly, effortlessly propelling our day to quitting time.  At least until the kids are in bed again and I can lounge on the couch, or sit with Joe on the patio, a glass of wine in my hands, the sun having just eased below the horizon, his warm body enveloping me in a kind of embrace.   But if the day slips past this quickly, I won’t be able to connect with Steve.  The emails of our afternoons slipping in and out like shadows of the sun, a breeze among the trees.   Just thinking about it, makes me taste a slip of red currant.  A cold jelly-like orb slips into my stomach, an elastic buoyancy that has me wishing it were time to check my email.

          Instead, I dip back into the bathroom and open the bottle of Paxil and place a small pill on my tongue. A dosage small enough to keep me sane, balanced, a good mom.  I turn the water on and hunch my shoulders over the sink while I cup my hands, slurping the medication into my system.  A quarter-turn later, and I see our daughter out of the corner of my eyes. 

          Kenna comes into our room, dark hair cascading about her slim frame, a nightgown of colorful owls and a face that resembles Joe’s.  I startle briefly, a quick glance to make sure my body is properly covered.  It is.  I tug the light-weight robe a little more snugly to my body, tying it.  “Good morning, sweetheart,” I bend to my knees and hold my arms out, an invitation for a hug.  I feel as if I need one as much as she does, after that dream of Beth and her ring.

[this is an original work of fiction by Leslie Lindsay.  Please do not take as your own.]