Milk Candy Review

In That Little House on Maple Street with the Curtains Always Drawn

there is Big Henry and Small Henry. No. Young Henry and Old Henry. The son caring for the father. Removing soiled bandages from pressure sores, wiping, applying ointment, measuring. Cutting gauze into perfect shapes. Pressing. Taping. Rolling Old Henry into position so he can see the TV. A man’s big hands careful. Old Henry’s eyes follow his son as he arranges boxes of green foam on the end of plastic sticks, the ones made for moistening chapped lips and white, fuzzy tongues inside mouths hanging open. Gaping in sleep, breathing the days and nights of a hospital bed in the living room, a waiting dry in the air. Old Henry was the big one once we all remember, cheering at the home games, ag company cap and mud on his Wranglers. But now he is body curled like a kitten and skin draped over bone. The refrigerator in the kitchen is full of morphine and memories of a woman long gone. Young Henry finds Columbo on the channel that plays vintage faves. Old Henry doesn’t smile when the detective turns around and says, “Just one more thing.” Not like he used to. Not on the outside, anyway. Young Henry lifts his father’s hip and inserts a pillow between the joint and the mattress. Like a seamstress or a baker, Young Henry’s hands move with dedication. As if hemming. As if kneading. Quarterback no more, Young Henry is full-time in the living room. Hour after hour, he does his work and time does its.

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Lisa Thornton is a writer and nurse. She has stories in SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Necessary Fiction, and other magazines. She has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize. Her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best Small Fictions. She lives in Illinois and can be found on Bluesky and Instagram @thorntonforreal. 

We recently published Madison Ellingsworth’s shimmering “Golden Polyps.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I love how literally the narrator takes the line the doctor gives them about their mother’s mind “going,” and how it leads them into reminiscences of a trip they never took, one they hope their mother will remember. But of course, the narrator doesn’t really take the line literally — they only wish to accompany their mother on this last, lonely trip. Do you think there will still be moments between the two of them when they can “travel” together?
I believe that the narrator and their mother will continue to “travel” together, definitely. There is a deep love between these two. The narrator’s care comes from more than a desire for maternal validation, and the mother has people in her life that she could sit and drink coffee with instead of her child. But these two choose to spend time together day after day. They “travel” through conversation, as they have not (and now likely can’t) travel physically. One day, the mother will travel on without her child to an unknown place, and they will never “travel” together again, but that is what makes these small “travels” special. I like to picture them at the narrator’s kitchen table, reminiscing on the mother’s bygone trips, and Bill and Mary’s crazy relationship, and how much those golden polyps hurt, for many years to come.

2) You approach the subject of dementia with such a subtle and delicate touch — the child’s pain is so palpable. But how does this story look from the mother’s point of view? Will she see the photograph on the fridge? Would there be a part of her that understands and remembers?
Thank you for your kind words! 
I would like to think that the narrator’s mother sees this photograph and she laughs, shocked to remember it all. I imagine that this vacation predated the birth of the narrator, and that the mother talks about her golden polyps with a gleam in her eye. The memories she has of the trip are heartwarming—even more so, now that her husband has passed—and she tells the narrator about Bill and Mary and their father as young people with the kind of fondness that only comes from several decades worth of distance. 
However, maybe that is not the case. Maybe she does not recognize the father in the picture, or know that those are her genitals. But, no matter what, I know that the narrator’s mother will notice this photograph. I see her plucking it off the fridge and examining it. Maybe she chuckles and asks what it is because, even if she does not remember it, this is not the kind of photo that goes unnoticed.

The doctor says that my mother’s mind is going, and he never tells me where to, or for how long, but that kind of information is what a person needs when they are taking a trip, because how am I supposed to join my mother and her mind in this new place if I can’t plan for it, can’t plan what food to leave in the fridge, can’t plan what she’ll need to have on her person, versus what she will need to have packed away, can’t plan what we will do if something goes wrong, those unexpected delays, or injuries, like when she went to Aruba thirty years ago, she and my father and Bill and Mary, and they jetted their rented pontoon—all pure white fiberglass and polished teak—in the nude, laughing all the way to the crest of a sand barge, where they stranded themselves, and everyone got sunburns that blistered into golden polyps across every inch of their bodies, forcing the Caribbean Coast Guard to ferry them straight to the main hospital in Oranjestad, and I still have the photograph of my mother and father in the exam room, standing beside one another, both red as clown noses, the flash glinting off the coagulated ointments and gels that the Aruban doctors coated their naked bodies with, and, I know, it’s a strange photograph to have hung on my fridge, but I like to imagine that my mother will notice it again, one of these afternoons when she and I return to my house for coffee, following another appointment with another doctor, and she’ll recognize herself and my father, who followed his mind somewhere unknown only a few years ago, and my mother will laugh at the photograph, at her slimed pubic hair and at my father’s sunburned genitals, and at me having hung such a memory on my fridge—me, her beloved daughter; me, her appointment chauffeur; me, her willing trip companion—me, who would join her anywhere her mind wanted to go, even if it was to a sand barge in Aruba with nothing but a weak-engined pontoon, if only she would tell me when we are leaving.

***

Madison Ellingsworth is a writer and ceramicist based in Portland, Maine. Her stories can be found in an array of publications, including West Trade Review, Fractured Lit, Lunch Ticket, Apple Valley Review, and more. She is a Best of the Net 2026 nominee. Madison can be found at madisonellingsworth.com, and on Instagram @madisonellingsworth.

We recently published Frances Klein’s thoughtful “Good Samaritan.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) This story is told in layers: the story being told at the dinner party, the story of the dinner party, the story behind the story being told. Do you think this story would be as effective without the framing of the dinner party?
For me, the framing of the dinner party is an essential layer to the story. It adds an additional element of isolation–the narrator unable or unwilling to discuss their college experience–that might excuse or at least contextualize their choice to their host. By having that additional layer, I hoped to emphasize and heighten the loneliness felt by the narrator. The interactions between the dinner party host and the narrator are also intended to make the real “goodness” of the narrator’s actions ambiguous. The host is clear and immediate in her condemnation of the narrator, but her many mistakes (undercooked and mismatched food) also cast doubt on her judgment. Without all of those layers of unspoken human interaction, I don’t think the loneliness of the narrator feels as stark.

2) The story is called “Good Samaritan,” but the narrator’s act is seen as selfish — partly by the host, who accuses them of taking away the man in the wheelchair’s “agency,” but also by themself, who simply longed for touch, for connection. Is the narrator less lonely now, do you think? Have they found some connection that keeps them from the painfulness of their college days?
Optimistically, I’d like to say yes (who doesn’t want their characters to have happy endings?!) but I think the real answer is more mixed. The narrator is now out of college, and at a dinner party, so we can assume that somewhere along the way they’ve found friends and connection, or at least a few people who’ll invite them over for dinner. However, in this scene at least the narrator clearly feels disconnected from like they can’t or aren’t connecting with them in the way they intended. It shows that, even though the narrator is now out of college and socializing as an adult, they still feel that sense of distance from the people around them. To me, it raises the question of whether we are ever really able to leave the past versions of ourselves behind, or whether we carry them forward with us, just dressed up in new outfits.

I told a story at a dinner party. The story went like this: I was in college and I was walking by the light rail line. A man in a wheelchair was on the track. The train was coming. I walked quickly, grasped the handles of the wheelchair, which were worn and had rubber bands wrapped around them, and pushed him off the track. It wasn’t far, maybe ten feet. The man cursed me the whole way and I listened while the train went by. When the story was done my host scolded me. I should never, she said, touch someone’s wheelchair without permission. She was serving undercooked white fish in cream sauce with red wine. Not even if they would have died? I asked. You don’t know, she said. The train could have stopped. You took away his agency. I didn’t tell the part of the story where I was so lonely at college. No one had touched me in months. Four nights a week I shelved books at the campus library full of students who crowded around tables and cried in the stacks and gave furtive blowjobs in the study rooms. I was so lonely I would leave my hands on the sides of the microfiche machines after turning them off so I could feel some kind of warmth. I was so lonely I turned the books facing out so at least the author’s photos would see me. I was so lonely the rubber bands on the handles of the man’s wheelchair felt like a lover tracing the lines of my palms, so lonely his curses hit my face like kisses.

***

Frances Klein (she/her) is an Alaskan poet and teacher. Klein is the author of the poetry collection Another Life (Riot in Your Throat 2025). She is a founding editor of Flight: A Literary Sampler, and editor at The Weight Journal. Klein’s flash and poetry have appeared in Best Microfictions, The London Magazine, Rattle, The Harvard Advocate and others.

We recently published Isabelle Hughes’ breathtaking “Afterward.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I love the intimacy of this apocalypse, how personal it feels. How it’s the little things that have changed that really affect the narrator the most. What little things would you miss about the dark?
I’d miss the moon terribly. Recently in New York it’s been uncharacteristically clear at night and I’ve been able to see some of the brighter stars, which are usually blocked by light pollution. It reminds me of how small we are and how infinite the universe is. I’d miss that. But I think I’d miss sleep most of all. The way the moon tells us, “go to bed.” Without that separation of day/night I imagine things would get really bleak, like, corporations would make us work longer hours and there’d be an excess of productivity guilt (something I already suffer from). The dark gives us permission to end. That, to me, is its greatest gift.

2) The story ends with the possibility of a star. With, perhaps, hope. Do you think there is hope? Do you think that, if there is, hope is something that should be held onto?
I struggle with hope sometimes — especially these days — and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Maybe that’s because hope is too conceptual? Too diffuse? Yet, we have to hold onto it. We have to believe in it. We have to find it in everyday things. Nobody is going to get up on a world stage and give us a reason to keep moving forward. It might sound trite, but I find hope in the unexpected places and on the smallest of scales, like, running into someone on the subway platform or reading a particularly beautiful poem (I’ve been reading a lot of Marie Howe’s work lately). A writing teacher once told me if you want to capture something “big” and universal, you do it with the tiniest, most concrete object, like a baby’s sock. I think that’s true in real life, too. Don’t look for hope at a macro level, you probably won’t find it there. Narrow your focus and let it sneak up on you.

once there was night and then we unlearned it, slowly at first, by drawing the curtains and saying things to comfort ourselves like think of all the bad things that happen in the dark. there was a time when this would have even made you smile and I could see your front teeth inverting because of the light through the curtain’s crack.

—

birds disappeared. plants grew indefinitely. fish migrated the wrong way. the roof replacing industry ballooned. remember the weight of a flashlight in your palm? remember: stars, christmas lights, red-eye flights, growing up, getting down, making art, making out, running away, coming back, returning, learning, moon cycles, mood cycles, the bright spray of gunfire, jazz after bed, coffee after dreams, sleeping like you’re dead, seeing, believing, doing what you’re not supposed to, getting away with it.

—

we used to frequent this bar on ellerby street. we drank so much our edges slimed or else our vision slimed, and I asked what’s the difference if you really think about it? and you really thought about it, but shit-kicked by beer, an answer escaped you.

—

too many times I show up in places I don’t belong like post offices and the bar on ellerby street and the house where I lived as a child that I sometimes look in the windows of to see if anything is still there like the cuckoo clock or the scribble on the wall of my bedroom. nobody understands this, especially not the woman who lives here now or her child who sleeps in the low bed with a mask over his eyes and just before the child lifts his mask and sees me standing there and calls for his mother who sees me standing there I think I notice a mark on the wall which someone painted over but still exists and I might even smile.

—

they scrub words from the dictionary — some that make sense (like night and bird) and some that don’t (like width and feature).

—

on our wedding day which is redundant so I’ll just say on our wedding guests arrive in black. they call to ask if we mean black tie to which we say no black, and some say what do you mean by that? which is not really a question. we don’t ask questions anymore because it’s pointless to wonder when the world is all forward motion and they’re changing our calendars from daily to weekly and we know they’ll change it from weekly to monthly. I wear black on our wedding too and so side by side we are like less piano keys and more like a merging. I stare at the overexposed photograph of us, bright except for our figures which are more important than our faces and there is no one else in the picture just like now.

—

we knew we were in trouble when the quality of music changed because before it reminded us of before. they built listening cafes where the light couldn’t get in to help us remember music but it shifted like fuzz on a cassette. imagine removing the bridge from Radiohead’s Karma Police or from Safe European Home by The Clash. whole segments flew away like the birds and with them the reason we’d loved the songs.

everything we could we did in the artificial dark. dinner parties, birthday parties, picnics, we tried to swim in the dark but it was unsafe. we couldn’t get enough dark. I remember eating bony fish in a black room with friends and we forgot, until the end, about one of the guests who we loved dearly but who only spoke when spoken to. we’re so sorry we said really! and she looked at us with her pupils no wider than needle points and said that was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

—

we got better at drawing the curtains. we rejected windows and their views.. we made new songs. we think often of birds. all the art incorporates birds: parrots, parakeets, woodpeckers, cardinals, and we invented new birds that we don’t have names for but who we delight in when we see their brightly-colored wings in the foreground of a picture. we tell our children about stars. sometimes in certain lights there is a plane or a reflection and we think is it a bird? but our children see it too, this tiny blot in the sky as iridescent as a gemstone and we wonder. we wonder.

***

Isabelle Hughes is an MFA candidate at Sarah Lawrence College. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in X-R-A-Y Lit, Blood+Honey, Cherry Tree Literary Journal, and Eunoia Review. She lives in New York City but will always call North Carolina home.

We recently published Timothy C Goodwin’s haunting “You Found a Ghost.”

Here, we ask him two questions about his story:

1) This kind of haunting — it’s so heartbreaking. It could happen to anyone. And the narrator’s voice is so wise and kind, guiding the reader through the proper steps to deal with this visitation. Is this gentleness, in part, because they can see themself becoming the ghost in this situation?
When I was a little kid I used to bemoan the fact that my mom put about 6.7 bazillion cat stickers on our Plymouth Voyager. It was so. Un. cool. “It helps me find the car in a parking lot,” my mom said. Cut to me, in college, walking to my car at the University of New Orleans, telling a friend, “It’ll be the Ford Mustang with all the band stickers on it, so I…can…find the car…in…” That was my first (of many) times I’ve realized I am slowly, quickly, unwittingly, wittingly, happily and unhappily turning into my parents. The amount of sympathy I have gained for them grows with every parallel I find myself in.

2) The things we inherit, good or bad, are displayed so powerfully here. Is it because of this connection that the narrator is able to show such compassion to their mother?
Yes: the older I get, the more I feel like my friends and I start to pick up on the things our parents have, emotionally, physically, even financially. I have a friend what recently zoomed with me and joked, “I’m not too happy that every time we get online together, all I see is your dad and mine.” I think I’ve finally come around to realizing my parents are just slightly more screwed-up versions of me. Or slightly less screwed up versions? I think that would depend on who you ask. But people who are still just trying to figure it out. Like me.

Be gentle. Ask where this ghost needs to be. Wants to be. Tell them you’re gonna take them there, wherever they say they’re going—Lydia’s for weekly bridge, “the lake,” their wife—because it won’t be long before they’re off again, slipping between dimensions to inadvertently interrupt someone else’s sleep/basement flooding investigation/attic reorganization. They might even (try to) take your arm, and they might even ask who you are. Tell them. They could use a kind voice: ghosts are the souls that slip off the shovel loads that Nature keeps feeding into the fire at the Center Of All Things, and now float aimlessly, a broken equation, eternally surprised, eternally confused, suddenly finding themselves here—wherever that is—without remembering how they got here, or why, with only the last, distant echo of where they think they should be. Like you: standing in the mudroom, realizing you just walked the dog but don’t remember a thing about it, how your absent-mindedness used to be funny, how you treated it like a kind of party trick, but it’s hereditary, what your mother has, showing up surprised at the foot of your bed or confused in the neighbor’s yard, still looking for dad, still thinking she hasn’t gone to the grocery store, as you gently take her arm, trying to give her a moment’s peace before she’s gone again.

***

Timothy C Goodwin has work included in Gooseberry Pie, Metastellar, Complete Sentence, HAD, Flash Frog, Best Small Fictions 2025, and elsewhere. (@)timothycgoodwin(.com)

We recently published Joy Yin’s brilliant “my mother & I.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) One of my favorite lines (from so many beauties!!) is “if I turn my head, it is only because the painter allows it.” In the universe where the narrator finds themself and their mother, what do you think the painter does allow?
I think the point here is that the painter wants them to be intensely aware of each other’s pain. Both the mother and the child might want to look away, but cannot because they are not in control of their own bodies. The painter allows them to bear witness to each other’s blood and arrows, but doesn’t allow them to interact, to stop the suffering. In other words, the painter allows them to feel and to see, but not to alter the story the painting is trying to tell.

2) I love how the idea of being deer (and not in a “soft, storybook way”) and the idea of pain and things not being meant to change are so intertwined here. Is there any possibility of change for the narrator and their mother in the universe where they are not deer?
The piece is partly about generational trauma, though it is up for interpretation. The similarity of their injuries and the line “we enter the world already hurt” imply that these wounds are passed down from mother to child. Even in a universe where they are not deer (and not trapped in a Frida Kahlo painting), their relationship would remain mostly unchanged. There may be more of a possibility for movement, but it would still be difficult to escape that cycle.