Doing the Limbo. That Time When I Was Sixteen.

That Summer

In the sleepy summer before I turned 16, my little brother and I were alone every day while my mother was at work in the kitchen of a country club. As a teacher and single mother, she had to take a second job when school was out, and the two of us fended for ourselves while she was gone. That summer, it seemed everything was growing, burgeoning, breaking open except for my life. Bold orange nasturtiums twined around the abandoned rakes, broken window screens and other discarded junk by our back door. Zinnias and tomatoes grew around the concrete cistern top, and a wild red rose climbed the side of the house. On our road, honeysuckle took over any available fence and Queen Anne’s Lace filled the ditch at the bottom of the yard.  

TIME STOOD STILL

During sultry afternoons that seemed to last forever, my brother played with Matchbox cars in the packed-down dirt under a shady backyard tree, while I lay like an offering anointed with baby oil under the hot sun. That summer, it felt like I was always waiting—for my mother to come home, for someone to notice me, for my time to bloom. And now I’m waiting again with the alternating restlessness and boredom of a teenager for the virus to be over, for life to start up, for what comes next. 

Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.