July Week 3
Here is my week 3 entry! Topic: "Happiness is..."
Summary: She was a silly little thing, really, with china doll limbs and a chubby, pouty face that turned tomato red when she didn't get her way. Fiction. Third person limited.
Naïveté
She was a silly little thing, really, with china doll limbs and a chubby, pouty face that turned tomato red when she didn't get her way.
"Mommy, watch me!"
It was Sunday, and she was wearing her favorite Easter dress, though Mommy had told her not to. She spread it out and twirled - she was a blur of pink and white and lace, a nymphet in the morning. Her stiff new shoes skipped and danced in the dewy grass of the graveyard, the damp soaking through her white stockings.
"Mommy! Are you watching me? Look!" she paused mid-twirl, flushed and panting from her performance. Her ribboned sailor cap hung askew on her curly golden head.
"No, Angie, just a minute," Mommy said, her voice sad. She was gazing at the ground pensively, and a fresh bouquet of yellow flowers crinkled in her hand as she gripped them. "Mommy's busy."
Angie sucked in an angry breath, but, instead of screaming, she tripped over to Mommy's side and setttled for a sad pout. Something was wrong with Mommy, she could tell by the way her slender neck was bowed, by the way curtains of dark hair fell in disarray about her face.
Angie pressed against her mother's leg, gloved hands gripping the folds of the black mourning dress.
"I like your flowers, Mommy," Angie offered quietly.
"They're not my flowers."
Angie blinked, comprehending this in her childish wisdom. "Oh," she said finally. "For someone else."
Mommy nodded, her eyes trained on the stone at her feet.
Angie released her mother's skirts and knelt next to the stone curiously, her white-stockinged knees soaking up the damp earth. Mommy really liked to look at this stone, but Angie didn't know why. It was a flat, cold rectangle in the ground with letters on it - big words that Angie couldn't read. And numbers too.
She ran her tiny hand over the strange symbols, her stubby fingers brushing the indentions and picking at the ivy growing over one corner. Mommy knelt down next to her and placed the flowers across the marble, her head bowed quietly.
Angie tottered to her feet, brushing out her grass-stained dress subconsciously. Without a word to her mother, she danced away, holding out her skirts like a fairy princess again. Maybe if Mommy saw her dancing, she would laugh again. Maybe Mommy would dance too, and twirl round and round, like she used to do with Daddy.
"Mommy, look at me," Angie called again, softer this time, dipping into a clumsy curtsy for her audience, toes pointed like they had taught her in ballet.
"I'm watching, Honey," Mommy was looking up from where she knelt next to the grave, her eyes hidden by her unkempt hair. But her lips were smiling softly.
Angie laughed and twirled, tripping over the gravestones, carefree and giddy.
It was alright. Mommy was smiling again. She was happy.
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*edit*
-I think I took the liberty of making up a few words while I was writing this. Ah well. :]
Criticize please! :]