Graduate student Madeline ffitch published a short story called “The Big Woman” in the winter issue of Tin House.
Madeline ffitch
ffitch is a doctoral student in the Creative Writing fiction program in the English Department at Ohio University.
The Big Woman
Marcus called out level and chalk line and finishing hammer, nail gun, drywall, and joist hanger. He called out two-by-six, angle finder, button caps, stepladder, and spray foam. At twelve thirty he called out lunch and he sat in his truck to eat a bologna sandwich, and he suspected that his boss, Gordo, hated his own child. Marcus was working on Gordo’s new house, designed to be a mansion if they could get the roof up before winter. Meanwhile, Gordo and his wife and child lived in the old house smashed right up against the new one. Gordo called it a shithole, swore to level it to the ground once his mansion was complete.
It was pretty much already winter if they were honest but they didn’t talk about it and worked by shop light until they couldn’t feel their fingers. Shop light, Marcus called out each night into the cloud of his breath, LedgerLok, spider bit….
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