JACKIE STOOD IN her kitchen at six that Saturday morning with a cup of coffee.
For three weeks she’d been trying to figure out what Micah meant when he’d said he ‘needed space’.
Her mom called thirty minutes later, and Jackie knew her mom had figured out something was wrong even though Jackie hadn’t told her anything.
“You’re not eating,” her mom said.
“I’m eating.”
“Come for lunch. I made some oxtail yesterday. I’ll heat it up.”
Arguing with her mom always drained her energy, so Jackie went for lunch.
She opened the back door and went into her mom’s kitchen in Woodlawn, which smelled of coconut and something simmering on the stove, as it always did.
Her mom stood at the stove with her back to the door and started talking to her before she had a chance to sit down.
“I heard from Micah’s mother last night.”
Jackie sighed and sank into the chair closest to the door at the kitchen table.
“Why would she call you?”
“She called to apologize for her son.”
Her mom turned, holding a wooden spoon, and pointed it in Jackie’s direction.
“You didn’t tell me he left.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Mi yuh madda!” her mom said, reverting to Jamaican patois to make the point. “Worrying is not optional.”
She set a bowl down in front of Jackie.
“Eat.”
So Jackie ate. The stew was hot, but she ate it anyway, burning her tongue, because it gave her something to do besides looking at her mom.
“What wrong wid you? You’ve been like dis for a while,” her mom said. “Quiet in a way I don’t like.”
“I’m fine.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something.”
Her mom sat across from her and reached over to put her hand over Jackie’s free hand, which had been picking at a loose thread on the tablecloth.
“Your grandma used to say something about the shadow. Do you remember?”
“What?”
“Do you remember about the shadow?” her mom asked.
“She used to say, ‘Yuh cyaan hide from yuh shadow’.”
“Yes, I remember that, but I don’t remember what it means.”
“Jackie, you know what it means.”
Her mom’s hand was still on hers.
“You’ve been walking around wondering who you are since that boy left. Jackie, did the answer pack a bag and leave wid him?”
Jackie snatched her hand back.
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not. But it’s true.”
Her mom went back to the stove.
“Look, chile, yuh was someone before him. You’ll go on being someone after. This is not a mystery, Jackie. You’ve just forgotten to look.”
“Look where?”
Her mom didn’t answer. She never explained herself twice; she said her piece, and that was it. She’d left Jamaica at eighteen with one large suitcase and a Howard University acceptance letter, and never returned to explain again, as far as Jackie knew, why she chose Howard when she had other acceptance letters from other colleges in Canada and one in England.
Jackie drove home through the Baltimore streets with the windows down, though it was cold and she probably shouldn’t have.
Two years ago, a week after she’d bought her condo, she’d walked into Scheinder on Wyndhurst and decided on a color chip.
She’d wanted a blue. SHE had. Jackie. Nobody had asked her to, or approved or objected.
She’d bought the paint and painted her bedroom door herself. She hadn’t done a good job. There was one drip running down near the hinge she’d never bothered to fix.
At her condo, she went and stood in front of her bedroom door.
She touched the years-dry drip now.
She hadn’t looked at this door in a while. She stood for a moment with her palm against the door. She did not think about Micah, or about her mom’s voice, or her grandma’s shadow.
What she did think about was that color, that blue, and that she, Jackie, had once chosen it for no reason other than because she loved that color and wanted it.
Her phone buzzed. She saw it was a text from Micah’s mother. She ignored it.
Then she went and ran a bath, because the oxtail had made her sleepy and it was still only early afternoon, and there was nowhere she needed to be.
Author’s Note
Yuh cyaan hide from yuh shadow.—Jamaican proverb
My mom used to call me before I’d told her anything was wrong. Somehow she always already knew. I’ve never figured out how she did that.
The Jamaican saying is something I have heard many times. It means “you can’t escape your true self.” I remembered it and wanted to write it into this story. I liked the idea of a mom reminding her daughter about something and not explaining it fully. My mom used to quote little sayings and proverbs to me, which she usually went on to explain with a story; she loved to tell stories.
I thought of the door late in the writing process. I don’t know that it resolves anything for Jackie. I’m not sure it resolved anything for me either. But there’s something to a color you chose once, for no reason other than wanting it, and it still being the color you chose when you finally look.
Upcoming…
August’s writing prompt:
One Hundred-Word Wonders, 19 August 2026
This year, every prompt will come directly from movie titles.
For those who want a head start, this month’s prompt is: 8 MILE. Write in exactly 100 words, a story, poem, or creative non-fiction in any genre, using the prompt. Pieces should be exactly 100 words, no more or less. The 100-word count does not include the title. Hold your piece until the 19th.
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