Staring blankly. I hold my arms at my sides, heavy and dense like they’ve been packed with mud. His hand still on my back. He is hurting, I am hurting. “Yes, he treated you bad,” Lettie says. He asked the same question six years ago when Brian left this family and all he knew. “Mom, you think you ought to take him to the beauty shop with you?”. Bathroom door, bedroom door. It’s been a while, and I was thinking maybe I’d come home to see everyone. The faded, thinning carpet. He was waiting for us to call. Travis goes over to his side of the bed. But I understand: we’ve already been through so much. His essays and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications, including Guernica, Bellevue Literary Review, Green Mountains Review, and BuzzFeed. “Not by touching.” Stop. Brian looked healthy, handsome, strong. “He just lives a busy life.”. He’s strong with wiry muscles, and rides a motorcycle, and, like most of the men around Chester, he’s rough around the edges. His pretend lisp gets louder, as if he’s shouting into my ear, and everything turns too bright—the green lawn, the black of Lettie’s hair. When the hymn ends we stay standing, except for Anita, who remains seated at the organ, her twiggy fingers now still. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Travis, sighing, sits heavily on the bed, his back to me. The church is small and old. We dutifully respond: “The darkness disappears and gives way to light.”. Once you know something, you can’t un-know it. She’s described her dreams to me before, the signs that tell her Brian’s okay and he’ll be coming home. He was waiting for us to call. My voice sounds strange and hollow like someone else is speaking through me. Carter Sickels’ much anticipated novel The Prettiest Star (Hub City Press) is a beautiful and moving story set in 1986 during the AIDS crisis. He is the recipient of the 2013 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award, and has been awarded scholarships to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, VCCA, and the MacDowell Colony. Travis says nothing else. Back in high school, Carol used to be wild: cutting classes, smoking in the bathroom, nipping whiskey out of a flask. Here a man returns to the town of his southern Ohio childhood at a point when his own day-to-day survival is at stake. The number of the dead rising and rising, and no end in sight. His essays and fiction have appeared in various publications, including Guernica, Bellevue Literary Review, and BuzzFeed, and he is the editor of Untangling the Knot: Queer Voices on Marriage, Relationships & Identity. His pajama pants hang low on his hips and he is wearing white tube socks, and now I wish I told him before he started getting dressed for bed. were the ones with the troubled kids: teen pregnancy, jail, school suspension. Hub City Writers Project| 186 West Main Street Shaking his head, he takes a step back, further away from me, in the shadows, the way he used to disappear after he came back from Vietnam. But over the years as a mother and now a grandmother, the wildness has disappeared like muscles lost under the folds of flesh. Love doesn’t come in to save him, or the family and friends upended by his presence. Reverend Clay lifts his arms and we rise as one. I still remember how I felt when they said the character was gay: everything in me went still and I started chattering, it didn’t matter what came out of my mouth, I just needed to talk over the TV, block it out, cover it up. But my heart races, my mouth tastes strangely of blood. Fiction The Prettiest Star. A heart triumph." He said in the first line, There is something I need to tell you. She is off-key, practically shouting. How clean, how white. The skin around his eyes crinkles, as if he is staring into the sun. Travis glances over, the edges of his bristled mustache curling up, his eyes saying, That’s just how my mother is, what can you do? But now to slide up beside him like that feels awkward and forced. Hair curled around his ears, crooked teeth, blue eyes. But when I walk in the bedroom and close the door behind me, I can’t hold onto it any longer. Carter is Assistant Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, where  he teaches in the Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Residency MFA program. Jess running water. He said in the first line. He opens it, barely glances at the writing, and closes it. Conversations float in and out like too many different radio stations playing at once. People die from it. But after the war, he stopped talking about going to college or trying to work his way up to foreman. This isn’t supposed to happen, we raised our kids right, we weren’t perfect but we were good, and now here I am sneaking out in the middle of the night and our son, five hundred miles away, is dying from what is in his blood, dying because of what he did, dying because of what he calls himself, and what if he comes back here and what if people find out the truth, then what will happen to us? He crosses his arms over his chest, letting go of nothing, making me do all the work. Sometimes he just comes into my mind.”, “It’s been so long since we heard anything.”, I pinch the insides of my crossed arms so hard I wanted to cry out. Carol and Wayne in a little brick ranch on the outskirts of town, and Paul and Liz in a double-wide. He stands in the same place where my father used to. When Brian left, Travis said it was his choice—we were not the guilty ones, it wasn’t our fault. The pause of silence that follows is not quiet but hot and panting. How is Sadie doing? When his breaths turn to snores, quietly, I get out of bed, go downstairs. My navy flats, Travis’s dress shoes with the tassels. The moon is almost full and the sky is clear and everything glows under the silver light: the towers of trees, protecting our still house. “I’m sure he’s fine,” I say. But I want him to read it: why do I have to explain? The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels Posted on August 7, 2020 by pagesofjulia Disclosure: Carter Sickels (ed., Untangling the Knot ) has taught at my MFA program in … He sounds muffled and far away, like I’m sinking underwater. The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels – Excerpt SHARON. It’s one of Lettie’s favorite hymns, and I hear her from behind us, drowning out everyone within a three-row radius. Head tilted to the side. He was strong then, maybe too strong. He was a clean-cut, all-American kid. Gas & Electric, the same place where their father once worked. The lid of the toilet. Didn’t want to worry us. I’ll tell Travis about the letter tomorrow. This isn’t supposed to happen, we raised our kids right, we weren’t perfect but we were good, and now here I am sneaking out in the middle of the night and our son, five hundred miles away, is dying from what is in his blood, dying because of what he did, dying because of what he calls himself, and what if he comes back here and what if people find out the truth, then what will happen to us? He infected my son. Travis talks to Paul and Wayne about work, and my nephews Matthew and Kyle toss a green foam football with their sons, while their wives, Sherri and Lisa, also Chester natives, smoke cigarettes and complain. They were the ones with the troubled kids: teen pregnancy, jail, school suspension. Here a man returns to the town of his southern Ohio childhood at a point when his own day-to-day survival is at stake. Still, disbelieving. A son’s first love is always for his mother, that’s what they say isn’t it? Her heart beating. 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