matchbook

f they ask where I go at night, I won’t tell them about the second job I had to pick up this winter, about the surprise medical bill that broke my budget or those long nights spent dyeing milk white at the dairy plant the next town over. They don’t need to know about the pink swirls of blood and pus gradually disappearing into the milk—how it reminded me of nursing, their toothless mouths clamping onto my nipples as I clutched them to me, half out of my mind with exhaustion. I won’t tell them about the breaks I take under the moon, the one coworker who always asks me if I want a cigarette. I always tell her no, because I know what she really wants from me. I feel it, too: that thrill between us, the longing to say fuck it and blow up our lives while our children are asleep. Instead, I will tell them that their mother is training to be a witch, that if they look up at the moon on a cloudless night they might just spot me flying across it on a broom, and when they scoff and say, “Prove it. Where’s your wand? Where’s your pointy hat?” I will just cackle and say nothing, because being a witch means knowing the power of words. I could ruin their love of milk if I told them. I could change my entire life with one simple yes.