by Lane Osborne

She dips her brush in paint, tries to see her subject—the basket-woven cornucopia of ripened fruit—but sees the ultrasound from hours earlier instead. Had her doctor said the size of a grapefruit? A cantaloupe? Strange to compare a fetus to fruit, she thinks. She’s been assured this time is different, but knows there’s no trying again. She wants to believe the butterflies she feels are the first flutters of life, not just nerves. Still, as she fills her cornucopia with its yield, she’s struck by that contranym that cuts both ways: yield, meaning either to produce or concede.

Lane Osborne teaches English Composition at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina where he lives with his wife and two children. His essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Waccamaw, StepAway Magazine, storySouth, and Oxford Magazine. “Still Life” is his first published piece of fiction.