Jocelyn Jane Cox
Black, White, and Red All Over
If a skunk wanders into the shed underneath your back deck, he might turn out to be rabid.
If the cops come and shoot it, the stench might invade your house and stay for weeks no matter how many vanilla candles your mother burns.
If you come back to your locker to get your lunch box, you might smell your house as soon as you open the metal door.
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If you ask for a tree swing, your father might build it himself even if your mother thinks they should just buy one.
If the links of the chain pinch the skin of your palms, your father might decide to squeeze an old garden hose around it.
If, while pulling it on there, the hook he uses to secure it to the workbench in the shed suddenly comes loose, he might fall back into the blade of the rototiller, shaving the skin right off his shinbone.
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If, a few years later, your parents split, they might sell the house, the shed, and most of the items in it.
If they both move to separate apartments, they might not be able to take the tulip bulbs around the oak tree, the lily of the valley lining the side garden, or the succulents poking out of the rock wall.
If you leave that house forever, someone else might get to fly high on that hard-earned swing.
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If, many years later, you move in with that guy despite your mother’s opinion, you might wince when he plays his bagpipes inside the house, but kind of love it, too.
If he swills scotch in a squat glass, you might find yourself swallowing too much of it as well.
If you’re determined to prove you’ve made a good decision, you might ignore all the skunks in the neighborhood, how they amble around confidently, sniff at the weeds, spew their scent on a nightly basis.
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If, a few years later, you finally break up and he angrily piles all of your belongings in the front yard, you might be humiliated by the display and also infinitely more certain you’d done the right thing.
If it takes a few hours to enlist help moving your stuff to a new apartment across town, you might worry that everything – your flowered throw pillow, your computer, your pots and pans – will get sprayed.
If you drive straight to her house that night, now single, now older, and she folds you into a hug without saying that she told you so, you might say it for her.
Jocelyn Jane Cox
Jocelyn Jane Cox holds an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her essays, short fiction, and humor have appeared in Slate, Brevity Blog, Roanoke Review, Penn Review, The New York Times, Belladonna Comedy, and Five Minutes.