Our 2020 SWFFP judges were fascinated by this strange gem of a story! The writer likens it to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It describes a mother’s realization—too late—that the son she adored and slaved over for years became a selfish monster. Thus begins her descent into functional madness.

Contained

The door opens and you are adrenaline-awake and realize you’re still in the living room. Your calves ache from the recliner and your husband snoring away upstairs would say I told you so, but you know you’re right. When he is under your roof, he is your responsibility, even though technically he is an adult and technically he is a visitor since this is the last night of Spring Break and he will head back to college tomorrow.

The air around Duncan smells like booze although you can’t quite place it through the peppermint. He says Heather—or was it Hailey?—got him a present and holds up the cup so you can see it in the pale light from the lamp by the recliner. The fish darts about, red silk folding and unfolding.

You must be supportive so you ask what all he did tonight, but he just says he’s tired and heads upstairs. The fish locks eyes with you, although you realize the curve of the plastic distorts everything.

You are on your hands and knees three weeks later. You see how dirty the cloth is after wiping just a few feet of the baseboards in Duncan’s room.

It’s your fault, of course. You don’t clean up here as often as you should. In your mind, it’s already your sewing room, and you can see exactly where the bins of fabric will go, and your sewing machine in the prime spot under the window. You saved a lot of money buying one gallon of paint and getting another one free. It will take every drop to wipe out the charcoal gray Duncan demanded back in his Goth days.

But all that has to wait. Duncan says jobs in his major are super hard to find and all of his friends will be moving back in with their parents after graduation, so he will, too. You start to say fine, but you’ll have to do chores and chip in for groceries, but then you remember him no bigger than the palm of your hand and tubes springing out of his clammy, red skin, and the endless stream of diapers no bigger than cotton balls. You remember the doctors never making eye contact and never promising anything. You keep your mouth shut. Duncan is a miracle, and miracles can’t be contained.

You’re already sick of cleaning so you stand up. There’s a cup of muck on Duncan’s desk. It takes a few seconds to realize it’s the fish. You carry it to the bathroom and peel the lid off, bracing for the smell, and pour the water into the toilet little by little. You want to tell the fish you are so, so sorry, that he was beautiful and didn’t deserve to die so cruelly, and then you picture Duncan laughing and bringing it up every time you ordered sushi from then on, so you keep it to yourself.

Then the fish is on the rim of the cup and he cocks his head and looks at you, and even though his eyes are milky, you understand perfectly this time since there’s no plastic cup between you. He is withered and spent but wants you to know that he knows it, too—miracles can’t be contained.

You buy an aquarium and learn about nitrites and substrate and plants. The people on the betta fish forums let you enter their world of solace and beauty. Everyone is so kind.The door from the kitchen to the garage is open and your husband is loading things into the SUV. It’s Parents’ Day, and that means delivering to Duncan all the new gadgets and clothes and sports stuff he says he needs and taking him and a gaggle of his fraternity buddies out to dinner, where they order the most expensive things on the menu. You see the date that you circled in red on the calendar on the wall, just like Spring Break three lines above.

“Ready?” Your husband says.

You hit “submit” and see that he’s already started the car.

You start to log off but just then a new post pops up at the top of the forum. CrowntailNewbie93 has a question, and is too innocent to realize that the answer is a matter of life or death.

“Just go on without me,” you say louder than necessary, because already the answer this poor creature needs has crystallized in three flawless paragraphs in your mind.

Ann Kellett is a writer, editor, and coach in Bryan-College Station, Texas, helping individuals and organizations tell their stories. Her flash fiction story won the 2012 Writers’ Police Academy Golden Donut contest and another story was a finalist in the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction at the 2019 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. She decided to become a storyteller just before she started second grade, when she heard her grandfather’s stories on the day the astronauts first landed on the moon.