By Jordan Abbruzzese

We were on the edge of an Ohio summer, spring rain still clinging to our skin. A morning breeze cooled my neck as I pressed my sweating back against the glass front door.

“You can walk straight ahead.” I directed my father as he squeezed through the tiled entryway. He tilted, maneuvering the maroon chair I had just bought at a garage sale after he begrudgingly agreed to drive it to my house in his new truck.

He set it down, shoulders moving with each breath. He wasn’t as strong as he used to be.

“You know, thirty dollars was a pretty good price for this.” His eyes moved around the unfamiliar room. I had just bought this old home and didn’t want to spend thirty dollars on anything. But the chair was owned by a couple in my parents’ neighborhood. They said it had been sitting in a guest room, with no one ever using it. That no one liked it.

I liked it. I liked it right away.

“It wasn’t too much, and we needed more seating, anyway.” I responded distractedly, patting and arranging the cushions. I wrapped my arms around my father in thanks, then watched him walk out of the house and down the driveway. I pulled the chair across the floor and against the wall, feeling the vibrations in my hands as it moved.

The chair and I stared at each other for a while, sunlight bleeding through the windows and turning parts of its arms white, dust dancing in the air. I wondered if anyone ever sat naked on the chair, painting their toenails, letting the sweat dry from balmy skin after a shower. Had the chair ever heard someone crying as they snuck away to the guest room to take a phone call they didn’t want anyone to hear? What ghosts were weaved through its threads and pushed under its folds as it grew wise all of these years, unwanted?

I knelt beside it, my palms gliding along its sides, frayed edges like a tiny forest catching my fingertips. They looked like animal marks—perhaps a cat that had gotten bored and snuck into the empty guest room where the neglected chair sat. “I don’t see what’s so bad about it,” the cat would think, pawing incessantly until its owner shooed it away, closing the door. The chair would then breathe a sigh of relief. It looked forward to its solitude.

I hoped the chair could truly be happy here and not overwhelmed by all the attention. The worn color perfectly matched the throw pillows on the gray sofa nestled beside it. Like we knew it was coming.

My husband came home and saw me covered in old dust and bits of fabric. He looked at the chair.

“I suppose it’s alright for now,” he said, sifting through mail.

“Oh. Just alright?” My voice broke, suddenly defensive. I stroked the chair again, then climbed up from the floor and onto the cushion so I could sink my thighs into the middle. I fit perfectly.

He watered the flowers while I sat, staring at the wall and listening to birds flutter outside the window. He made dinner and walked the dog while threads slowly began to interlace with my skin. Hours went by, but it didn’t matter. I felt content, and the chair did too.

The sun crept across the sky, beams dancing over the floor planks and bathing us in light. My eyes grew into dewy stained glass, glowing with a pink reflection. Maroon textured patterns spread like wings across my shoulders. They moved when I breathed, lightly flapping.

“Are you still doing okay?” my husband would ask periodically as he moved through the kitchen, boiling water for tea. It had been a few weeks.

My answer was always yes, or nothing at all.

By the time the chair swallowed me completely, he had grown more used to it, tossing his keys on the cushion where I once sat or balancing a hardcover book on my arm.

Once in a while, my dog would sniff, tugging at the sturdy frame that had become my bones. “Oh, you leave Mom alone,” my husband would say. “She’s happy there.”

He’d embrace me night after night, and I’d drift off while the television channels blinked, layering the room in dull voices and dim light. I didn’t need to sleep anymore, but I liked to.

Eventually, he began to relax as I cradled his lower back, the fibers of my body braiding around the hair behind his legs. He sighed and shifted, becoming more comfortable. He stopped asking how I was doing, and the dog no longer worried.

The moon moved through the night, reflecting on our skin as he sank.