Katherine O’Connor

      Before I speak to her I look at her, as we stand several meters apart in the gym locker room, approximately forty years apart in age though we have the same fold in the middle of our backs, extra skin that has creased deeper as we have been told by someone repeatedly to pull our shoulders away from our ears, but still we are nothing like each other, not really, because I do not wear bras anymore—it is unbelievable to me that they have yet to make them the least bit comfortable—as I decided that I really don’t care if my measly breasts sink towards my feet over years and years of walking around letting them bounce up and down, though I will hopefully be doing things other than walking around eventually, that eventually I won’t have time to go to the gym so often. I wait for her to stand up fully and turn around so that I can see her face, so that I can assess what kind of person she has become as though I would be able to tell from her expression whether she is the kind of woman who still goes to the gym because she has to be able to keep moving for the people who depend on her—whenever I see a woman of a certain age I can’t help but wonder whether or not she has children, thinking of my mother who has always looked exactly the same how she told me that her own mother only began looking old to her recently, when her medication stopped working so well—which should be a hopeful thought but is extinguished by the fact that she is here alone and her hands are shaking and she is bent so far forwards that she is probably getting her own long hair in her eyes, maybe in her mouth, and because she does not have enough potential enough dexterity left inside of her joints her limbs to do too much at once. So she lets the hair fall in her face and as I watch her struggle to hook the bottom clasp of her bra I realize that I have been staring at her for a disturbing length of time, and I am embarrassed for myself and for her and though I cannot reach out and just do it for her at least I can finally ask, “Do you need any help?”

Katherine O’Connor is a writer from Alberta currently living in New York City. She is an MFA candidate at Columbia University and her writing has been featured in BRIO Literary Journal, The Hemlock Journal, and elsewhere. She is working on her first novel.