In Pieces
By Cathy Ulrich
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Someone has been replacing his wife in pieces. He first notices it when she pulls a spring dress over her head as they prepare for dinner with her parents, the fabric rustling round her bare legs.
Have you always had that mole there?
She’s distracted, checking her makeup in the mirror. Where?
There. Beside your left knee.
She barely glances at it. I think so. Sure.
Then it’s the scar on her shoulder that she’s had since childhood, crawling under the neighbors’ barbwire fence, tearing her jacket, shirt and flesh. Running his finger along her skin as they lie in bed together in the dimness of early evening, he doesn’t feel its familiar traces.
She shrugs. It faded. Scars do that.
It’s smaller things, too, like one earlobe suddenly thicker than the other, or the pinkie finger on her right suddenly longer, thinner.…
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