O:JA&L Flash Nonfiction: CNF/Essay/Memoir/ Vignette
Alida Dean
SOMEDAY
L gets in touch with my mom after sixty-five years of silence to remind her that they were abused by her dad when they were kids. He brought them to fancy restaurants, felt them up in the backseat of his Buick, took my mom out on his sailboat alone—L pled seasickness—drugged her, and raped her. Multiple times, according to L. She wants my mom to write a memoir about it.
Why can’t she write her own memoir? I say. It’s her dad. We’re on the phone. I’m on the couch, the dog’s head on my thigh. J’s in the kitchen chopping vegetables.
Because no one would believe her.
Hand on my belly, Do you?
I remember the sailboat.
What about the sailboat?
She sighs. I don’t know, I was only in kindergarten.
Of course, if he drugged her, she wouldn’t remember, would she? But if he raped her, wouldn’t she have felt very sore after?
But what do you think happened?
At first I thought she was nuts, her kids won’t talk to her, she’s lonely, she made it all up for attention, but then I started thinking about my terrible choices in men, and I do remember getting on the boat with him. In my mind, there are other people there, but I don’t know.
J comes in the living room, shovels imaginary soup in his mouth with an imaginary spoon. I nod, tears running down my cheeks. I cry everyday now.
After kindergarten, my mom’s family moved and she never saw L or L’s dad again.
I’m sorry, I say.
Whatever happened, it was a long time ago.
After we eat dinner, load the dishwasher, and take separate showers, J and I lie next to each other in bed, watching my belly contort. I’m due in a month. There’s another person living inside me, right there, just beneath my skin. Sylvie or Ellen or Jane. Sometimes I can see the outline of her tiny foot. I’m glad we’re having a girl.
Also, terrified.
Someday she’ll go to a friend’s house after school and I won’t be able to go with her.
Someday, whatever happens, it was long time ago.
About the writer:
Alida Dean’s writing has recently appeared in The Forge, Ninth Letter, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among other venues. Her unpublished novel I Don’t Think I’ll Miss You Much was a Finalist for the 2025 Rising Writer Prize from Autumn House Press, and she is a 2025 fellow in poetry at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. Alida teaches writing workshops through the nonprofit Literary Cleveland and at Tompkins Cortland Community College. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her partner and daughter.
Image: You Can’t Make the Wind Blow (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via MidJourney AI.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
O:JA&L’S BUTTONHOOK PRESS MASTERS SERIES
Click on the titles below to explore or download the free PDF chapbooks in the O:JA&L Masters Series.
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Mark Budman on Flash Discourse
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Ray Gonzalez on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Michael Martone on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Roberta Allen on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Peter Conners on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Pedro Ponce on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
With an interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
MORE TITLES IN PRESS
