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| Issue 30: | Sept. 2025 |
| Micro-CNF: | 102 words |
By Bella Mahaya Carter
Heirloom
My husband’s grandmother receives us in bed for the first time, our final visit.
Her eyes remain closed as I massage her body over her pink velour bathrobe, careful not to touch the tumors on her chest.
Hands. Arms. Legs. Feet. Shoulders. Neck. I scratch her scalp—white hair liberated from its French twist, loose around her wrinkled, sallow face. She doesn’t move. I wonder if she feels my fingers.
But when I finish, her blue eyes pop open, bright as two stars.
We kiss her forehead and say goodbye.
She tells us in a sterling crystal voice: “Happy days ahead.”
Bella Mahaya Carter
is an award-winning author of three books, most recently, Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? Finding Peace of Mind While You Write, Publish, and Promote Your Book (She Writes Press, 2021). A wordsmith and spiritual psychology practitioner, Bella facilitates online writing circles for writers, artists, healers, dreamers, and seekers. Her work has appeared in the Brevity blog, Calyx, The Dribble Drabble Review, Lilith, Literary Mama, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Sun Magazine, and elsewhere. She’s currently working on an intergenerational pregnancy memoir in micro and flash stories.
Author’s website: https://www.bellamahayacarter.com
More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond
⚡ Museum Muse, microfiction by Bella in Issue 21 of MacQueen’s Quinterly, aka MacQ-21 (January 2024)
⚡ A Couple of Queens, microfiction by Bella in MacQ-18 (April 2023)
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