“Dorothy’s Children” by Garrett Ashley

Dorothy lets her third child dangle from her shoulder like a jungle purse. Two children hang by her coarse hips. Third churns the bubbling pudding down in the four quart pot while Dorothy arranges the mangled spice nook. The fourth pours out the womb and crawls away and hides beneath the radio playing Toccata and Fugne. The fifth comes with the mailman. The sixth child and seventh, too—he pulls them out of his sweaty leather sack and crams them through the mail slot. The dog chases him down the path. Dorothy will never see the mailman again.

The milkman brings the eighth and ninth. He now delivers milk twice a day for Dorothy. “I love you,” he says, red faced. Dorothy shuts the door. The fourth invites the first to his home beneath the radio. She cannot save her children from beneath the radio, not anymore. She feeds the others soured pudding and breast milk. “Don’t you want my milk?” says the muffled voice of the jealous milkman.

“Not anymore,” says Dorothy. She is always holding the third like a purse. It is reading New Culinary Methods by Jane Austen.

The dog chases the milkman down the path. She scolds the dog for his controlling behavior. He licks the third child’s saline feet and runs inside and jumps on the couch. The ceiling is cracking and turning over. The fan falls and mice tumble down through the stucco. They cover the sticky meconium-black carpet. Dorothy collects them and throws them out to the birds. The third is watching and learning carefully from Dorothy’s shoulder. She pours the sour pudding down the drain. She finally drowns the dog in the bathtub. “Where’s my dad,” the third child will ask. One day, the third will leave home and never look back.