It’s summer in the global south (which is winter in the global north), and for the month of January Literatur.Review is bringing them all together, publishing previously untranslated or unpublished stories from the north and south of our world.

Jen Conley grew up in Manchester Township, New Jersey, about two miles away from where the Hindenburg crashed in the year of 1937. She has an English Literature degree from Elon College, North Carolina, and spent over two years living in London, England, a city she still loves. She’s been a convenience store clerk, secretary, bartender, and finally, a middle school teacher (which she is retiring from in February 2025). Despite all these jobs, she’s always been writing. Conley is the author of the Anthony Award-winning YA novel, Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry and the Anthony Award-nominated short story collection, Cannibals: Stories from the Edge of the Pine Barrens. 

They lived in a Blue state, but their county was deep red. Blood red. Neither political party bothered knocking on doors in their neighborhood, even though there were enough red flags and banners to remind onlookers that this was a Red county. And Dawn’s house was a Red house.

The women in Dawn’s neighborhood were either two things: loud and proud about being Red, or keep-the-peace head nodders who’d change the subject, like, “I love your mums! Where did you get yours? Mine are dying already!” Dawn figured the women in the second group were Blue and whispered to other Blue women, or maybe they were non-political, or red but didn’t want to talk politics. Dawn could never figure them out. Didn’t matter. Dawn’s husband was a Red voter, and it was assumed Dawn agreed with him because she never told anyone different.

A month earlier, Dawn’s husband came home from his job, a job he was once proud of but now hated, holding Vote-by-Mail applications. He slapped them on the kitchen table and told her they were voting by mail for the first time in their lives. “We have to turn this state red. You and I are going to do our part.” He was always saying they both had to do their part. Earlier that summer, Dawn had gone along with him to a rally in Atlantic City, but they waited several hours for the man to arrive, and the plantar fasciitis she’d worked so hard to get rid of—physical therapy, daily and nightly stretches, painful cortisone shots administered by long needles that went straight into her heel—returned. She’d used up all her physical therapy spots for the year, and she was embarrassed to go back to the doctor for the shots, so she just stretched her heel and popped enough Advil to rival an alcoholic’s liver. All that summer, every weekend, the TV was on, loud and arrogant, and she wasn’t allowed to change the channel, so she’d put on her headphones and listen to her audiobooks while she cleaned or cooked. It was easier to live in her house if she pretended she was a mouse.

When her husband had first started listening to right-wingers on the radio, talking about getting armed, first started meeting up with others on Saturday afternoons at the local Dunkin Donuts to discuss everything that was wrong with the country, she’d argue with him because that’s what she always did—she spoke her mind. When they were young, and for most of their marriage, she was the mouthy one, the sarcastic one, the one who made him laugh, the one who had no problem telling him that he needed to do the lawn instead of watching football. But things had changed. Two years ago, he threw a dish at her. It smacked her into her forehead, drew blood, and left a terrible bruise. When her daughter came home from Boston for the weekend, Dawn made the choice to lie to her. “I was cleaning something on the floor and stood up too fast, smacking my head against the point in the counter.” Her daughter told her to be more careful.

And then there was the snarling and shouting. Shouting about stupid shit, like not having enough sugar for his coffee, about her sneakers on the floor that he almost tripped over, about her overcooking the chicken. Snarling about things she couldn’t fix, such as the loss of her cute figure. “That’s what caught my eye when we were young. That body you used to have.” Part of her thought he might be getting early dementia, but he was too clear-headed for that. Part of her thought he might be depressed, and when she Googled it, it could fit. When she looked up brainwashed, it almost fit. When she stumbled upon the word seduced, that definitely fit.

“Fill this out,” he told her, pushing the voting application at her. “Fill it out, and they’ll send us our voter ballots.” He glared at her, not trusting her, which didn’t make sense. She’d never given him any reason to make him believe she’d betray him. For many years, he was all that she ever wanted. Handsome in his young days, strong and protective, a great father, fun, energetic, happy. It had been a great marriage until eight years ago, when a woman decided to run for president. If Dawn had to pick a moment when things in his head changed, it would be the woman. Sure the trouble had been creeping up beforehand, but at least Dawn could talk to him about it. Yet as soon as that “cunt” became the candidate, he screamed at Dawn for announcing that she would vote for her. Screamed at her in front of their son, in front of their daughter, screamed so loud, shouted so violently in her face, that Dawn’s stomach clenched brutally until she saw stars. Later, they’d worked it, of course—he apologized for his outburst, and Dawn thought things would be okay. Then his man lost again, and for the past four years, her husband’s anger had mushroomed into manic rage. He’d bought a gun for the first time in his life and started spending nights at the shooting range. Her daughter began whispering that Dad was going crazy. Her son moved to Colorado and hadn’t come home in three years.

Dawn had old friends, but they lived far away, and she never told them what was going on. Her sister, Cheryl, who lived in Delaware, experiencing a free, happy life of friends, Bingo, and dates, stopped visiting months ago. When Dawn refused to admit something was deeply wrong, Cheryl announced that she would stop calling. “If it gets bad, come down to my house,” Cheryl said in their last conversation. At the time, Dawn still believed her husband would snap out of it, wake up, and laugh at one of her jokes, even though he hadn’t done that in years. She told her sister this, but Cheryl didn’t buy this absurdly optimistic scenario. “Again, if it gets bad, come down to my house. Until then, I’m going to smoke you out and not speak to you.” Dawn’s sister had always been the quiet one in the family, the dutiful one, the responsible one, the nice one. Yet when she turned fifty-seven, a switch flipped in her head. Her husband had run off with another woman, and instead of crashing in despair, Dawn’s sister did the opposite—Cheryl embraced this new life as if she had been transferred to a magnificent planet filled with freedom and light. In the last five years, Cheryl had had two long-term boyfriends, one who died of a heart attack and one whose grown children made him move across the country to live with them. After the second man left, she did a wine and food group tour in Italy. She’d taken art classes and even started showing some of her paintings—all glorious and filled with bright colors. She had a job that she loved, and she did yoga and had lost twenty-five pounds. “I’ll say this one last time,” Cheryl said again, “if it gets bad, call me.”

Yesterday, the ballots came in the mail, and Dawn’s husband sat her at the table. “You know what to do,” he said, watching her darken every oval of every Red candidate in blue ink, watching her sign her name on the certificate, watching her slide both into the envelope and seal it. Then he grabbed it from her and said he’d take it to the drop box the next day. But this morning, he woke up sick, most likely Covid, and Dawn tended to him, gave him Tylenol to take the shakes away, gave him water, and the remote to the TV in their bedroom so he could watch the news. Yet, despite the illness, he was coherent enough to order her to drop the votes off, coherent enough to remind her that he would track their votes online to make sure they were counted. And then, he reminded her he had a gun. “It’s loaded. Ready. You do the right thing.”

Dawn smiled. “Honey, come on. Don’t joke like that.”

For a few seconds, he returned the smile, a weak smile because he was sick, but he smiled. That old smile, the one she loved, the one that made her fall in love with him all those years ago when she met him in a boardwalk bar on a warm summer night.

Then, the smile faded, and this man she didn’t want reappeared.

Dawn did the dutiful thing – she got in her car and drove along the quiet roads, admiring the golden leaves of the autumn, remembering how her mother would take her and Cheryl for walks in the woods in the fall, pointing out trees with the most stunning colors.

Dawn pulled into the parking lot of the local library and approached the metal drop box where the votes were collected. She recalled how her husband wanted to drop them off himself, but here she was, the one in control. She slid his ballot into the slot because if she didn’t, that would be fraud. But hers, it was hers, and she didn’t want to vote Red. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to vote. But it was legally hers. She could do what she wanted.

The day she filled out the Vote-By-Mail application, he had told her, then showed her online, that he could track their votes. “See,” he said, smacking the screen with his finger. “I’ll be able to check it.” Dawn knew that if she threw out her vote, he’d know. He’d twist into a violent fury, might shout at her, might throw a dish at her, might take out his gun.

She wasn’t sure how long it would take before their votes would show up online, maybe a day or two. A day or two to pack up her belongings—she wouldn’t take much. Clothes, medication, photos of her kids, photos of Cheryl and her mom, and her laptop. This is what could happen.

The breeze blew, and trees rocked, golden leaves drifting in the air like butterflies. Dawn loved her husband so much, or she used to. It wasn’t the politics, it was the behavior—that’s what Cheryl told her in that last phone call. “Come down to my house, see if it changes things. I have a gun, and I’ll keep it loaded. I know the cops around here, and I’ll tell them your situation. I’ve got security cameras. You’ll be safe.”  

Dawn held her vote in her hand, the bright sunshine blinding her for a moment, and then she spotted a garbage can a few feet away. This was a “big life choice,” as her mom would say, the same thing she said the day Dawn married her husband. A big life choice.

The breeze blew again, this time fiercer as she walked to the garbage can. For a moment, she hesitated, but a whip of courage tore through her, and Dawn ripped up her ballot and dropped it in the can. Then she called her sister. Cheryl didn’t answer, so Dawn left a voicemail, telling Cheryl she’d made the choice.

Dawn drove home, feeling relieved, then the guilt crept in, and then the tragedy of it all broke her will. Inside the house, upstairs, she peeked into their bedroom and found her husband asleep. Downstairs, for an entire hour, she sat on the couch listening to the wind grow stronger, banging against the house and talked herself into changing her mind. Prepared herself for suggesting marriage counseling. Fantasized about planning a trip to an island where they could reconnect.

When she went up to check on her husband again, she noticed the closet door where the safe that held the gun was opened. When she looked closer, she saw that the safe had been opened. She saw that the gun was still in the safe, but it was a threat. As sick as he was, he’d managed to get up and create this warning for her.

A minute later, her sister returned her call.