Little Girl
The neighborhood was on the wrong side of the tracks. That was clear to see from the outside of each home which lined Swanson Street. Paint peeled from shoe box-sized houses built to shelter working men and women each night when they returned from hard labor in the small industrial town. Life was hard on Swanson Street. No one would argue that point.
Inside 406 Swanson sat a small girl and her mother. The little girl played on the floor. The carpet was frayed and several of her dolls lacked arms, eyes, or hair. She never received a single gift from her mother who was either too poor or too depressed to seek out happiness for herself, let alone her innocent little girl. But the child didn't know any better and went right on playing.
As the sun set, and the mother's stomach growled for an evening meal, she stirred. She stood and walked to the spartan kitchen. A battered cardboard table flanked by two folding chairs was pressed against one wall. The mother opened the fridge and sighed. She reached into the cold box and removed a small bag of lunch meat, and sliced cheese. She grabbed the two heels from a loaf of bread and threw away the plastic bag.
"Come to the table for dinner Caroline," she said. Her voice was almost too soft to be carried into the living room. She sat at the table and waited. And waited. "Caroline!" Her flat palms slapped the top of the table in tandem.
Caroline rose, walked to the kitchen door, and looked at her mother with a vacant, expressionless face. "No," she told her mother. The two stared each other down. A battle of wills in which neither side would relent.
After a long while, the little girl's mother stood to approach her daughter. She intended to force the child to sit at the table and each her scant meal. She reached out a rage-filled arm to grasp the girl's shoulder when Caroline roared her objection.
"No!" The refrigerator shook, a folding chair fell backward, and the grime-covered window over the sink cracked from one corner to the other. The mother's feet froze in place. Her hands shot to cover her ears, as a small trickle of blood ran down her cheek. She shook with a violent spasm, and fell to the patched linoleum floor, unconscious. Her shallow breaths started to gurgle and fill with fluid. A flow of white and red mucus filled her mouth and overflowed onto her cheek.
Caroline turned without expression and returned to playing with her dolls.
THE END