by Erica S. Arkin

Burial at Sea

The summer after she died, I rented a 28 ft. boat and took the kids sailing in the sound. All day they huddled below deck watching Titanic on my daughter’s cell phone. All day I wondered how long it would take the Coast Guard to find them if I hoisted myself over the bow and just let go.

It Comes in Waves

As he rowed out past the breakers, Papa told me fishing would soothe him the same way donating all the unused baby clothes had soothed Mama. After an hour of bobbing up and down, he said that the motion is what makes you right again. I asked if that was why Mama wouldn’t leave the rocking chair. 

Erica S. Arkin received her M.F.A. in fiction from Emerson College in Boston, MA and currently teaches Writing at Bentley University. In addition to composing very short fiction, Erica is working on a collection of linked short stories that map an American family’s struggle to reconcile its complex and often volatile Northern Irish heritage.