In Short – Issue 3 (Spring 2025)

May 31, 2025

Image Credit: mariya_m

The Seamstress of Buenos Aires

By Donald A. Ranard

How many children do you have? she asked. We were sitting on the sofa in her small living-room sipping yerba mate tea, as she measured our daughter for a prom dress. 

Sola una, my wife said. Just one. Y usted? How many do you have?

I have two, she said. One on earth, and one in heaven.

Donald A. Ranard (he/him) has written for The Atlantic, New World Writing Quarterly, Vestal Review, The Los Angeles Review, 100 Word Story, The Best Travel Writing, and elsewhere. In 2022, his prose poem “5/25/22” was longlisted by Wigleaf as one of the year’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions and his one-act play, ELBOW. APPLE. CARPET. SADDLE. BUBBLE., placed second in a national playwriting contest. Before settling in Arlington, Virginia, he lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.