Splinter by Melissa Bandy

I wait until the last possible second to bother him about the splinter. He needs his rest, and my discomfort is so trivial.

But it is wedged in my heel, a place where I can’t contort my body to get an adequate grip, and the girls can’t be late to Nutcracker rehearsal. 

Neal’s head is sunk deep into his pillow, so it is easy to mentally frame his sleeping face with his curly brown locks. Where they used to be. I can also fill in the skin around his eyes and remove the scars from his head. Go back to a year ago, at least in my mind. I sit on the ottoman next to the couch and stay in that imaginary place a few seconds longer.

“Hey,” I finally say. He shifts and sits up, exposing the baldness, the sunken eyes, the scars.

“What’s up?” He picks up the remote and mutes the football game. He never watched football before, instead spending his Saturdays on long runs. I used to resent the marathon training, the hours away from us. We argued and compromised. No one was ever happy. Now it’s college football all day long. Now we never argue. Now we pretend to be happy.

I hold the tweezers out. “I need help.” 

He turns on the lamp by the couch. We switch places, so he’s on the ottoman, and I lie face down on the couch, my feet under the light. 

The sounds of the girls’ laughter travels to us from downstairs, where they are dressed in their leotards and tights, watching television while they wait for me.

I consider yelling down for them to come up. There is an impulse that every time Neal is awake, we should all be together. We can make a memory. Remember the time Daddy had to get the splinter out of Mommy’s foot? Lila could take a picture.

We started a family journal of our memories after the second round of chemo started, diligently writing something every day.

It feels good, the pressure on the splinter. Pain I know will lead to relief. And his hands on me, in this weirdly intimate situation. I let the girls stay with their show and keep this for myself. We’ll come up with something else to journal about today.

“I’m going to have to dig a little. It’s in there.” He is out of breath. My husband, who two years ago did a half marathon in ninety minutes, undone by a splinter.

“It’s fine. It’s thick skin.”

He moves the tweezers and I flinch.

“Sorry.”

I make myself stay there, through the pain, willing myself to be unmoving.

Eloise is eleven, Lila nine. Neal has another year, if we are lucky. Will Eloise be able to remove a splinter when she’s twelve? I’ve learned to do so much over the last year–mow the yard, print the tax forms, remember where we keep the batteries.

“I’m close,” he says.

I brace myself and think of the church ladies, dutifully bringing casseroles on Sundays, always asking me what I need. I picture greeting them one day, one year, eighteen months from now, who knows? And holding out a pair of tweezers, telling them what I really need.

“Got it.”

I sit up and we examine the slender piece of wood held between the metal prongs, the sliver that caused so much pain.

He drops it into my palm, ever so gently, before I leave him to throw it away.

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MELISSA BANDY — Melissa lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her family. She is a reader for The Masters Review, and her short fiction can be found in Literary Mama, Quail Bell Review, among other publications.

Art by MILO BROWN — Milo (they/them) is an artist and science teacher based in a small mountain town in Southern California. They were a 2026 Artist in Residence at Chateau Orquevaux and have participated in galleries and published in literary magazines. You can find more of their work at https://www.milobrownart.com and on their Instagram account, @milobrownart.