We’re in the back of a casino eating veggie burgers when she says things always work out for her. She didn’t even apply to grad school, a friend mentioned her name and they offered a full scholarship. Doctors said she’d never have kids. She tried twice and got a boy and a girl. When she put a down payment on a house, the sellers backed out, then the house burned down. The next day a bigger, better one went on the market and they took her first offer. I said, let’s get married. I didn’t have any money and neither did she. Then she got a job at a marketing firm with a ten-thousand-dollar bonus. We used it for the venue. Someone had cancelled. Everyone could make it except the relatives no one knew. I painted the nursery and sent out resumés. I waited for more kids, but they never came. I waited for a call about my applications, but the phone stayed silent. Then my dad got cancer. So did hers. Her mom died in her sleep. Her sister was arrested in Portland. I saged the house and hung oversized dreamcatchers. I told her we should join a church. She said okay. The dog died during a routine surgery. I bought a four-leaf clover in green acrylic, a bronze Ganesha, found my grandfather’s rabbit’s foot. I don’t condone such things, but still. We got a babysitter and drove back to the casino. It was five years older. Felt like fifty. We said maybe we could retrace things, find whatever we’d lost. After a few drinks I fed a slot machine a five. It buzzed, lights everywhere. A thousand dollars. I handed it to a girl sitting alone in the corner. She smiled and thanked me for sharing my luck. I smiled and we drove home without saying anything. The next day I got a call. Someone stole my identity, ran up ten grand at a casino. I asked if they’d had any luck.
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Patrick G. Roland is a writer and educator living with cystic fibrosis. He enjoys exploring other people’s attics and basements, where most of his writing ideas are created and sometimes lost. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in journals such as Hobart, Sky Island, scaffold, Emerge Literary, and Maudlin House, among others. Twitter: @pg_roland
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image: Natalie Nee is a novelist and latte enthusiast. Her work has appeared in Across the Margin (Best of Across The Margin, 2023), Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Cowboy Jamboree Press, Tiny Wren Lit, BULL, The Hooghly Review, and more. She’s cooler on Twitter (@novelnatalie) or her website (natalienee.com).
Rejection Letters 