Status Updates From The Call

She will die on this hill, the mud soaking into her clothes with the video camera televising her fall. The nation’s leader will think it’s sending a message to stand down; to fall in line or else. He doesn’t know, the way she knows, that the moment her body hits the ground, a flood will follow.

And then Leona checks into the hospital for delivery, but never checks out.

On the news, the cameras follow her mother, pale-faced and ashen, as she leaves with the grandchild whose existence killed her baby. The reporters bury her in questions about the sex, the weight, the name. Leona isn’t mentioned once.

His speech is full of promises, the way politicians’ speeches always are, but the way he focuses on blame instead of solutions sets Jo on edge.

It unnerves him, the way she doesn’t shrink away from his fury.

Jo stands a little straighter, a little prouder, and looks him in the eye when she tells him, “I would be here less, if you’d stop letting them go.”