by Laura Leigh Morris
after Margaret Wise Brown
Once there was a mom who wanted nothing more than a minute alone. It was one in the afternoon, and she’d been up with her kids since five. They’d painted pictures for her, which meant they’d painted the kitchen floor too. They’d built a blanket fort in the dining room, stripping every bed in the house. And after they’d left half their lunch smeared across the kitchen table, they’d refused to nap. So she said to them, “I’m locking the bathroom door.”
“If you lock the door,” said her kids who were lobbing projectiles across the living room, “we will use a paper clip to force the lock.”
“If you force the lock,” said the mom as she dodged a well-aimed spitball, “I will crawl from the window and hide in the yard.”
“If you hide in the yard,” said the kids, as they triangulated their positions around her, “we will release a hunting dog to sniff you out.”
“If you release a hunting dog,” said the mom, stepping toward an open doorway, “I will put treats in my pocket, throw them to the dog, and jump over the fence.”
“If you jump over the fence,” said the kids, trying to block her escape, “we will call CPS and tell them you leave us alone all day every day.”
“If you call CPS,” said the mom, backing down the hallway, “I will tell them you do not belong to me, that you are neighborhood kids who have been stalking me.”
“If you lie to CPS,” said the kids whose arms reached out at her, “we will move into the neighbor’s house and won’t come home again.”
“And then I’ll have a minute to myself,” said the mom, stepping into the bathroom. She locked the door behind her.
Laura Leigh Morris is the author of The Stone Catchers: A Novel (2024), a finalist for the Willie Morris Award, the Weatherford Award, and WCONA Book of the Year, as well as Jaws of Life: Stories (2018). She's previously published short fiction and essays in STORY Magazine, North American Review, The Florida Review, and other journals. She teaches writing at Furman University in Greenville, SC and at a local prison. To learn more, visit www.lauraleighmorris.com.
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