Linda read the word father and tasted raw cranberries—sharp, almost violent, with a sweetness buried so deep it might as well have been a lie.
“Who?” Linda asked.
It tasted like nothing too.
When the letter arrived—typewritten, no return address—Linda knew before she opened it. The envelope itself tasted of pennies and rust. Bitter , she thought, and the word tasted like the rind of an unripe persimmon, that mouth-drying, teeth-furring kind of bitter that makes you pucker and want to spit.
Linda stood very still. The word pregnant tasted like boiled spinach—green, metallic, a little bit good for you in a way that made you resent it. The word raised tasted like rye bread—dark, dense, crusted with seeds that stuck in your teeth.
Linda folded the photograph into her pocket. She stood up.
And that, she thought, might be the beginning of something new.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked.
She hadn’t spoken to her mother in eleven years.
Linda looked at the photograph. The man’s smile was crooked, kind. She tried to taste his name. Thomas . It tasted like honey—real honey, the kind with the comb still in it, sweet and waxy and a little bit wild.