"The Recliner" by Anne Anthony
– The stare-off begins. Puss-faces, Mom called us. A game of chicken, I think.
Seven years older, decibels louder, she always won.
Anne Anthony tends to carry on conversations with characters inside her head when writing her stories. A few years back, she stopped shushing them, agreed to tell their stories, and they’ve all been happy ever since. She lives and writes in North Carolina. Her recent publications include Bull, Gooseberry Pie Lit Magazine, Flash Boulevard, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. Her micro-fiction, It’s a Mother Thing, was nominated for Best Microfiction 2024 by Cleaver Magazine. She is a senior editor and art director for the online literary journal, Does It Have Pockets. Find more of Anne’s writing at https://linktr.ee/anchalastudio.
Anne Anthony
Author’s Talk
Before I talk about my story, I’d like to share some background about my sister. Twelve years before her birth, Karl Landsteiner identified Rh, a blood factor antigen. Here’s what he discovered: if an Rh-negative mother becomes pregnant with an Rh-positive fetus, she develops antibodies to fight the fetus as if it's an invading virus. Her physicians took forty-eight hours to identify and treat my sister’s condition but the damage was done—partial hearing loss, cerebral palsy, and a predisposition for auto-immune diseases. I was born seven years later which coincided with the first time my sister wore hearing aids. Imagine what she missed in those years. The first sound she heard was the song of a cardinal. Her hearing loss meant she spoke loudly and everyone in the family spoke just as loudly so she could hear them. I’m pretty sure I’m a writer because it was the only way I could hear my thoughts. I am quiet to her loud. Mary lived with our parents all her life, leaned heavily on my father for guidance. He was 92 when he died. At the same time, my mother’s memory was failing her which required extra care so my sister and mother both moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina into an assisted living facility near me. I struggled to find time to write while managing ER or hospital admissions (they both were inclined to fall), checking on their welfare, or accompanying them to doctor appointments. Figuring out how to have a closer relationship with my sister after decades of living apart was challenging. My mother passed away four years after my father. This story about getting her a new recliner is one of many real-life stories. Some I have fictionalized so I could play with the plot. I’m currently working on a novella-in-flash about two sisters coming together after years apart and ironically, it is starting to read like a coming-of-age tale. My sister relishes being my muse and I’m delighted she provides so much fodder for my fiction.
