Caitlin Horrocks, It Looks Like This

‹— Waterford, Ohio

“They’re all hymns.”

“I’m sorry you came all this way,” she said, and I said I didn’t mind. “Would you stay for some iced tea?” she asked. “Something to eat?” and I said I’d love to.

It was a nice day, sunny but not too hot, so it didn’t feel strange that Elsa didn’t invite me inside the house. I waited on the porch and in a few minutes she came back out with two blue plates, glasses of ice tea balanced beside pieces of pie. The tea was kind of warm, no ice, and the pie was blueberry. We both sat on the porch railing, Elsa’s skirt hitched up a bit, the forks clinking on the plates as we ate.

“Everybody says that.”

“Like who?”

“Like my friends. My mom’s doctors. My English teacher.”

“That doesn’t make it untrue.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to me, whether you think I believe in you or not. Believe in you, what does that mean? You’re not a ghost. You ate my pie.”

“Sorry.”