flash fiction by faith palermo

Annals of

Doris Ann keeps everything. Her hallways are lined with time, coated in acidic, dissolving history. The fire department will order them gone, will force the family to rip out piles of daily newspapers, carefully buried decades deep. Elbows will no longer be tacked together, arms brought to chest to dodge the hoard, to avoid Doris’ ire from the other side of the brownstone. There will be room for joy, arms spinning, faces smiling. Doris Ann will not see the space, will only remember the absence. Doris Ann does not like to let things go.

Before the brownstone, her mother Cora tumbled down from Canada. Centuries earlier, someone in England floated on a boat for two months, crossing an ocean, shifting continents. Cora’s mother sought wilderness, craved a constant cold. Years later, Cora shifts south with Doris. Doris doesn’t mind Boston. She walks quickly across cobblestoned streets, careful not to wedge skinny heels between the cracks.

She continues building the life that Cora started, finds a job, supports herself. She watches children that aren’t her own, holds them close, trying not to become too attached. Their mother will be gone, busy in a different room, and their father will use this opportunity, this absence. He becomes too familiar. Doris is well versed in her job description. Instinctually, she strikes him.

The children’s mother will hear it and laugh. Doris gains respect, trust, will retain her job until the family discovers her kissing a man in the commons. They call her loose. Doris Ann is laughing now — she hadn’t stopped building, had found Joseph, had hoarded days off to tie the knot. She holds up her left hand. It glints under synthetic light. She is asked to leave.

Doris sees the world changing around her. The stock market crashes. Her first daughter is born. Earhart crosses the Pacific. Sons will emerge, timed conveniently to avoid the Second World War. More daughters. The last would be born the day before the invasion of Normandy. History furls around the family. Doris keeps the context close.

Doris references her sources, her stacks. One of the sons is sent to Vietnam. The war has lasted for far too long, too many sons sent across the Pacific. Doris remembers the children she watched, joins legions of those who watch them grow up alongside their own. When her first daughter marries, one of the children is elected president. His eyes look up from the newspapers that line the hallway, pinched face staring out in black and white. She writes him, makes her thoughts on the war known. He remembers her and apologizes, refuses to alter worldwide events on her behalf. Doris’ daughter has a son of her own. Kennedy’s face in the hallway is covered by pictures of the limo in Texas, a death mask designed in newsprint.

The grandson is followed by granddaughters and grandsons. Family expands. When the youngest granddaughter is in elementary school, the stack of newspapers will line the perimeter of the house. The top of the stack details desegregation in schools. The piles and the granddaughter will grow at the same pace as time ticks forward. Vietnam ends. Doris’ son returns changed. The Challenger explodes. Doris’ first great-grandchild is born. The Soviet Union collapses. The fire department discovers Doris Ann’s archive. If the house burns, Doris Ann will go with it.

In the first week of October, 1998, Doris’ family snips her obituary from The Globe. They dispose of the remaining pages, balling them into the rubbish. A great-great-granddaughter will

yearn for Doris’ collections, will scour the internet for any trace of her. The obituary will be lost, uncatalogued. The house burns. Dorris Ann goes with it.