Ruby and Lily, by Kalliopy Paleos

Kitchen Interior, by Vilehlm Rosenstand (Denmark) 1883

Ruby and Lily

Oh, sweet Lily. Momma named us after beautiful things. Momma even had a diamond ring, too. Lily wants that ring, but I say it’s mine. Yesterday I hid it in the china closet. Nobody else around here got a china closet. Or a house as fine. I was with her when she found it, close by just like a draft from a window. She even shivered. That time she found it by the sink I let her keep it a few days. And wasn’t she charming, holding her hand up to see it shimmer, smoothing the wallpaper, singing I see you pretty flowers, I see you pretty birds . . . I sang too, but she thought it was the train rushing by, other side of Saunders’s field. Next time I’ll put that ring under the sofa. She likes finding it there, down on all fours yelping like sweet old Brandy used to. Daddy got that ring off a lady’s hand he almost tread on over in Berlin. Somthin’ soft under my boot, he’d say, so’s I look down and it was just winkin’ up at me. So now it’s your Momma’s and you girls just gonna have to fight over it when we’re gone.

Kalliopy Paleos

This story was written to The Pause, by Nicolas Martin (Canada) 2016. Click here to view.

Kalliopy Paleos is a teacher of French with roots in Greece, France, and the US. Her poems and micros have recently been seen in the Tupelo Press 30/30 challenge, The Ekphrastic Review and Mediterranean Poetry. Interests include 18th century history and staring at trees while thinking.