That’s not how I remember it, Penelope exclaims, a monstrous snort escaping from the pinch of her nose. My sister’s tongue holds different stories, even though we’re just a year apart. I was there, too, I remind her, but she just puffs out her chest, blows out words like rings of cigarette smoke. I can’t help but pout my ripostes. They flounder under the arsenal of dismissals at her disposal: flurries of grunts, huffs and puffs, and swiveling head swings that would make a fit man pass out. We’re rocking on the front porch after dinner. I live in Ma’s house now, keep the place as I think she would, water her spindly plants. Every Thursday evening, Penelope crosses the street to share the same meal, soup beans and stack cake, Ma’s favorite, cooked on Ma’s wood stove. After, we fuel ourselves with a glass or more of dry sherry, try to recall histories we can twin. But we just end up at each other’s throats—whose story is fact, whose is fiction. Did Miss M– really kiss the principal behind the juniper? Did Pa not come home every evening? Our chairs creak in protest as we shift in our seats, grasping at wisps of evidence, tipsy from drink and mutual debunking. The moon illuminates the silver in our hair. Soon waves and curls of white like snowdrops cascade over our shoulders, down our backs, and onto the old knotty plank floor. The split ends of Penelope’s and the split ends of mine find each other, weave strands of retorts under and over like the stretchy loops we wove into potholders when we were children. They knot into a tapestry of hide and seek, hide and seek, our tangled pattern.

hanging basket
pothos tendrils quiver
Ma’s laughing ghost

Publisher’s Note:

This is Mikki’s first haibun—and I’m simply thrilled that she’s granted me the honor of being first to present it to the world! And I hope to read and publish many more of her haibun in the future.

Mikki Aronoff

writes tiny stories and advocates for animals. Her work has been long-listed for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Best American Short Stories, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and the Pushcart Prize. She has stories in Best Microfiction 2024 and Best Small Fictions 2024, and forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2025.

Her writing also appears in 100 word story, Atlas and Alice, Bending Genres, The Citron Review, The Disappointed Housewife, The Dribble Drabble Review, Flash Boulevard, Gone Lawn, New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Midway Journal, Milk Candy Review, Mslexia, The Offing, Tiny Molecules, trampset, and elsewhere. She lives in New Mexico.