We Donated Our Parents
to Goodwill Last April

by Monica Rose Nowik

In that drafty house once called home, we had discovered our parents propped in the attic corner. Behind yellowed photographs, burnt-out lamps, and ads for 1980s air conditioning units they stood, dusty and motheaten.

The disgruntled teenage employee stowed them among the vinyls and CDs, and we took the grandkids to visit: Dad, offering Facebook articles on the dangers of sunscreen to innocent passersby; Mom, glaring at the skirt lengths in the women’s section.

This year, their alcove is empty, a tooth gap in a mouth of antiquity.

Perhaps they have gone to a better home. They are not ours anymore.

Monica Rose Nowik is a writer and filmmaker based in New Jersey. She’s like if a toxic male writer was a girl.