Good Answer
Jon Sindell

IN HIGH SCHOOL, when I was still watching my weight, Mama got so heavy she’d spread herself on the couch for hours watching Family Feud.
   “Name a fruit.”
   “Apple.”
   “Good answer!” the contestant’s family would cheer.
   I’d look at Mama to laugh at the lameness, but she’d just stare at the screen with a churchy glow, like the glow when she’d refill Papa’s whiskey, or when Wayne skipped his homework to play Halo even though he was flunking out.
   I looked at the three so peaceful together, and grabbed a brownie from Mama’s huge platter.
   It tasted like the holy host.

Jon Sindell wrote the flash–fiction collection The Roadkill Collection (Big Table Publishing, 2014) and the long–story collection Family Happiness (2016). He curates the San Francisco–based reading series Rolling Writers.