Alexandra Rowan Voices of Tomorrow Scholarship

The Burnt Ones My grandmother loved the burnt ones potato chips cooked to a bitter edge offered across the kitchen table as we played word games until our eyes crossed in the smoky kitchen she let me fill in empty crosswords in books she had set aside and chastised me only a little bit when I took too many My grandmother was razor thin despite her faithful daily intake of one can of Narranganset prescribed by her doctor Bavarian-Canadienne bones chiseled by sixty years of up and down up and down up Grafton Hill down to the factories her sharp bones carrying her home My grandmother slapped me once after I sassed her thoughtlessly in the backseat of my mother’s car my cheek smarted imprinted with the bony heat of her fingers I never knew the right words to say to my grandmother after that so I said very little until she died having nothing to offer My grandmother the orphan is buried in Northboro a skinny slot in a big family plot she never did take up much space her name is carved on a book of stone between relatives who never sat at her kitchen table but they had a place for her when the tubes came out and the smoke cleared My grandmother loved the burnt ones that no one else ever wanted but that we would have given her gladly even if we did want them were she here now I’d slice and fry up a batch of potato chips and push them to the edge of burning and show them to my grandmother so she would know what I could not say before Mustache There’s a mustache where your face should be a furry shadow cast long over me a mustache is all that’s left I try to call your name catch the hem of your postman’s shorts at the knee in my fat little fingers but those are gone too I remember you coming home from work with samples with other people’s names, smiling it didn’t seem strange then it was Christmas every week with little boxes of Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops and you weren’t afraid to hug me then when I ran to the end of the driveway to meet you one day I was cold and reached up for you and you said “no don’t touch me” and it got colder and I never did touch him again because I always obeyed him we all did In the photos of you looking down reading serious alone I keep expecting it to have faded like a ghost story but you’re always there your mustache swallowing your face shadows covering words I don’t understand I can’t forget and I wonder if that’s what I inherited from you the curse of memory an intractable, unmovable self and the fear fear is all that’s left to us sometimes but not all that’s left of me I know it I know this But in my dreams where you are muttering and speaking of haunting and of angels and red sin all I can see is your mustache and all I can feel is how cold the world was when I couldn’t touch you anymore.

Sunlight poured over the stroller, warming the small blanket around the baby. Lila held it tightly as she pushed down the sidewalk, groceries stacked in the basket below. Each step felt heavy and deliberate, as if she was carrying more than just the infant. Her classes seemed distant now, with textbooks gathering dust on the shelf. She shifted the baby in her arms and looked up past a woman rushing toward a café. The woman wore a sharp blazer, and her heels clicked against the pavement. Her hair was pulled back neatly, and she held papers under one arm. Lila blinked. There was something in the woman’s eyes—determination? Familiarity? But the street separated them, and the moment faded away. The other Lila walked through the glass doors of the office she had dreamed about for years, a badge clipped neatly to her blazer. She took a deep breath, straightened her blazer, and watched a colleague wheel a cart of coffee past. In the reflection, she saw a mother with a stroller, moving slowly and focused. Their eyes met briefly in the mirrored glass, sparking a sense of recognition that she couldn’t quite place. Then it disappeared as they moved in their own worlds. One carried responsibility that shaped every second of her day, while the other carried ambition, deadlines, and the thrilling taste of independence. Back in the apartment, the first Lila sang softly to the baby, her lullabies clashing with her ringing phone. A notification for a missed lecture blinked on her cracked screen, but she left it alone. Her life felt full, overwhelming, beautiful, and exhausting. She rocked the stroller, thinking about a future she never asked for but had to navigate. She imagined tiny hands in hers during each heartbreak and joy. Meanwhile, the other Lila typed quickly at her computer, crafting a presentation that could help her land the promotion she had pursued for years. Her apartment smelled faintly of takeout. The walls were lined with motivational posters and unopened novels. She paused at the window, looking down at the street, and spotted the mother again, pushing the stroller, focused and alive to a different rhythm. She shook her head, laughing softly at how strange it was to feel both envy and admiration at the same time. Then she sat on the edge of the bathroom, legs pressed together, laughing nervously. Her friend leaned against the doorframe, holding the test. Lila flipped it over. Negative. A wave of relief washed over her, lifting the weight of possibility. The parallel lives of the two Lilas she’d glimpsed, each full of consequences, sacrifices, and choices, collapsed back into a single reality. She would live her life on her own terms, her dreams secure, her freedom hers alone. Her friend grinned. “Well,” she said, nudging Lila, “looks like the universe gave you the choice.” Lila exhaled, closed her eyes, and let out a small laugh. Choice, freedom, control. In that moment, she understood everything she needed to: life was complicated, but her path was her own.