Second Helping of Grits

by Julia Mallory

FULL MOON
She loved the way he held his mouth. Like his teeth were meant to balance the weight of his jaws. All his features moved in unison. No quick smile. Steady eyes that took their time working you over, so much that you thought they weren't observing you. No part of his face was in charge. His eyebrows didn't spike in inquiry. His eyes didn't pop in shock. His smile didn't spread in satisfaction. No. His whole face made a decision.

WAXING CRESCENT
And he decided that December night when the moon was dangling in the damp blue sky. She had been marinating in the glow of the moon when her head became stuck in the crook of its crescent. A single tear salted her face, its ashy streak tattooed on her cheek before it evaporated into the brisk air. She really tried not to lose herself in the endless heaven above her head but the stars talked to her and she was raised to believe that it was rude not to look in the direction of someone speaking to you. Her Auntie Dionne would tease her about being sky-struck.

"Delphine, girl, your head in them clouds so much, a bird gone run off with you."

But it wasn't a bird that ran off with her. It was a man moving too fast, on two feet. Who bent the corner like the sidewalk was a freshly paved road and his body a car. He crashed into her frozen frame and broke her trance. He grabbed a handful of the green blur she was until she was steady on her feet, still and in focus.

"Miss, you all right?" His question was accented with genuine concern.

Her eyes were wide but unmoving.

"Miss, I didn’t hurt you, did I?"

Her head tilted forward and she looked like a cartoon worm that was surprised it had burrowed through a Granny Smith apple.

FIRST QUARTER
They devoured each other for three days straight. He turned her body into a constellation. Lovemaking that knocked her taste buds and his headboard loose.

WAXING GIBBOUS
By the time she emerged from the shower on the second day, he had unscrewed the headboard from the bed frame and leaned it against the wall furthest from the bed. The wall had a thin crack that resembled the shape of a stretched-out Z. He handed her a robe and wrapped his hand around hers as he guided her to the small dinette table with mismatched chairs.

"I figured you might be hungry."

He placed two pretty patterned plates in front of her. A mismatched backdrop for the dull food served on them. Yet, she happily ate what he served. She couldn't taste it over the fullness of his name rolling around in her mouth, A-R-I-O-N.

NEW MOON
Staring behind his head at the supermarket calendar on the wall, she remembered what life was like before him. She had vowed to never again date a man without hobbies, friendships, or kin, chosen or otherwise. They mistook their own misplaced boredom for attentiveness or sacrifice. But because they did not have excitement elsewhere or connections or conflict, they rolled all three into a ball of blah that she could never figure out how to hold.

And because they never gave up anything to be in the relationship, they overlooked that they were requiring her to give endlessly, to the point of exhaustion. They needed everything while pretending they needed nothing. The self-described nice guys. The "baby, you know I'm just a simple man" before they left the mess of their life on her living room floor. The low-key. The so-called easy. Her aunt always told her the easy way in would be the hard way out.

"I hear you, Auntie Dee," she had said in between sobs over the phone after she came home to find all of Terrance's things gone along with her emergency stash of cash she hid under her mattress. The predictability of it all angered her. Then the shame consumed her.

WANING CRESCENT
While he wasn't like that, sometimes he was too even. Flat almost, that the thrill of moving towards that balance was lost. Nothing to work through. No rise and fall. No suspension, no hanging from his every mood. She scooped the scorching, sticky grits into two bowls. Then she turned the faucet on as the pipes groaned in protest. They hesitated before they released the cold gush of water into the pot. She knew neither of them would be having a second helping of grits.

WANING GIBBOUS
She looked up at the moon which appeared to be climbing from behind the sky. With her head back in its natural position, she shifted her sight in front of her where a bold Venus was charming Jupiter. Now ain't that something, she thought as she headed home, eager to climb into the bed she hadn’t slept in in weeks.

LAST QUARTER
He ran his hand down the green mass of her coat left on the oak stand near the door she would never walk through again.

Julia Mallory is committed to being a good steward of, and vessel for, her ancestors' stories. Julia has been published by Barrelhouse, Emergent Literary, The Offing, Stellium Literary Magazine, Torch Literary Arts, and others.