Fourth

Written by Betty Stanton

I'm sorry, he says. Sits beside me in the waiting room. A friend of my fiancée, in our wedding, and I have never met him before today except once at a party where I was too drunk to remember his thin-lipped smile, apologetic eyes. You'll need to call your mother, he says, and it is a code I've never learned for your father is dying. I hadn't known he worked at this hospital until we saw him in the hallway, three nights before he died. Three nights he has hovered, brought food, checked on me or on my father. He's gone into respiratory distress three times, and he has been there dragging him back to breath.

crows lift from the fence,
their shadows thinning
into dusk and silence.

About the Author

Betty Stanton (she/her) is a Pushcart nominated writer who lives and teaches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her MFA from the University of Texas – El Paso and also holds a doctorate in educational leadership. Some of her favorite recent publications are in Sussurus, Bi Women Quarterly, and narrated on the Midwest Weird podcast. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review.

Follow her on Bluesky: @fadingbetty.bsky.social