#102 Yellow

by Krystal Sierra

The sun shined through the doorway, spilling its yellow light into the hall.

Marianne Sutter had spilled yellow down that hall. Yellow paint. When she was just two. Titá had whipped her with a bare hand for it, but Marianne could not remember. She had a habit of forgetting things.

Forgetting.

What was it that she wanted to remember? The yellow paint, the slow way it spread. Titá must have been angry for one reason only—she kept that tile like glass. Even as her eyes gave out.

Too old.

Hadn’t Titá said that when she spilled the paint? I’m too old for this. You’re too old for this. Neither she nor Titá was too old then.

Now is different. Now they are.

The yellow paint spread. She remembered it between her fingers, remembered crawling through it. She’d brought her dolly along too whom Titá took away soon after.

Why couldn’t she remember the whipping?

Marianne had gotten the paint from a drawer in the kitchen. She unscrewed the cap herself. Gato had come to see. Marianne followed his twitching tail down the hall.

The sun shone in the doorway, spilling yellow down the hall.

Now the hall shone white. Not one trace of yellow could be found. Not even between the cracks of the checkered tile.

White.

Only white. The yellow had been scoured away. Not even Titá could change the way the hall looked now. In that hall, Marianne was Marianne.