She pulled the door closed, trying to ignore the dirty hallway and broken railing. She closed her eyes, straining to hear her daughter, somehow a woman, settling into her first apartment. She walked gingerly down the stairs, her legs and arms aching from carrying. Her heart aching from letting go.
Melanie Winklosky is a fiction writer trapped in a grant writer’s body. Her work can be found in McSweeney’s, and was named a finalist in the 2023 Boston in 100 Words contest and a 2023 finalist in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenge. She lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts.
