Brigit's Flame, January, week #2
Title: Separate Strands
Author: keppiehed
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 675
Prompt: “Patience”
A/N: Written for week #2 at brigits_flame. Anyone who has a teenage daughter will recognize the inherent truth of the prompt. ;)
The couch springs groan as my daughter slings herself onto the cushions, jostling me. She pokes my shoulder with a pink-sparkled nail until I shut the lid of my laptop. “What?”
“Can you untangle these?” she asks sweetly, as if she hadn't screamed at me over breakfast for an imagined infraction.
I stare at the snarl of silver chains balled up in her hand. “How did they get like that? We got you a jewelry box for your birthday.” I try not to sound disapproving and fail.
“They were in there, Mom.” She shrugs. “I don't know. They just got that way. On their own.”
I sigh but take the necklaces from her and pull at the end of one. The whole mass tightens. I tease the links around and manage to extricate a heart charm I don't recognize.
“Katie and I got these at the mall,” she offers. “It means 'best friends'. See, it says it here on the back.”
I hide my surprise. It isn't like her to give details about her life; she cultivates mystery as if she's in training for a job as a secret agent. The moment has the quality of a soap bubble; I can feel the iridescence shimmering and threatening to break almost before I fully notice it. “Oh?” I murmur, keeping my head bent to the task so as not to force things between us.
“Mm-hm,”, she says, but doesn't say anything else.
“It's pretty,” I offer, but I can see by the look on her face that it was a misstep. “Here.” I hand her another freed chain, a plain silver one this time.
She takes it and begins to talk about her assignments in algebra. As she chats about her teacher and the unfairness of linear equations, I sneak a peek. She is both the most familiar face I know and the swiftest changing. It tugs at my heart to see her straddling the bridge to adulthood, her hips newly curved and her cheekbones sharper every day, yet the same slightly chubby hands I remembered curling against mine when she was learning to walk. I can't believe how long her hair is; it's longer than I ever kept it when she was young. She's wearing it like all the other girls do. I want to reach out and take one of her curls between my fingers, that hair that she has never appreciated and hates so much, but if I did she would bolt like a deer in the forest under the crack of the gun. The ire would flare in an instant if I tried to tell her how beautiful it was-how beautiful she is-and she would be gone before I could finish blinking.
I wish I could tell her these things, the things that there are never time for and that she doesn't want to hear anyway. I wish I could tell her how much she isn't like me, how she's stronger than I've ever been. How I am proud of her. How much I love her. But I know the time for that is either long past or maybe yet to come, and if I try it now, she'll flinch. So I nod and listen to her talk and my fingers work on what little problems they can solve and I am grateful for the time we have.
The last chain is stubborn, but just when it seems as if it will break rather than give, it falls free and I am holding two separate strands. She leaps up and snatches them away and is on to the whirl of her life in which I am now only a footnote. For a moment I can still feel the heat next to me from where she had been sitting. Then that, too, fades. I open my laptop and begin again where I had left off in the writing.
“Hey, Mom?”
I look up.
She's stuck her head back in to the room. “Thanks.” And then she's gone again.
But this time I smile.
Author: keppiehed
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 675
Prompt: “Patience”
A/N: Written for week #2 at brigits_flame. Anyone who has a teenage daughter will recognize the inherent truth of the prompt. ;)
The couch springs groan as my daughter slings herself onto the cushions, jostling me. She pokes my shoulder with a pink-sparkled nail until I shut the lid of my laptop. “What?”
“Can you untangle these?” she asks sweetly, as if she hadn't screamed at me over breakfast for an imagined infraction.
I stare at the snarl of silver chains balled up in her hand. “How did they get like that? We got you a jewelry box for your birthday.” I try not to sound disapproving and fail.
“They were in there, Mom.” She shrugs. “I don't know. They just got that way. On their own.”
I sigh but take the necklaces from her and pull at the end of one. The whole mass tightens. I tease the links around and manage to extricate a heart charm I don't recognize.
“Katie and I got these at the mall,” she offers. “It means 'best friends'. See, it says it here on the back.”
I hide my surprise. It isn't like her to give details about her life; she cultivates mystery as if she's in training for a job as a secret agent. The moment has the quality of a soap bubble; I can feel the iridescence shimmering and threatening to break almost before I fully notice it. “Oh?” I murmur, keeping my head bent to the task so as not to force things between us.
“Mm-hm,”, she says, but doesn't say anything else.
“It's pretty,” I offer, but I can see by the look on her face that it was a misstep. “Here.” I hand her another freed chain, a plain silver one this time.
She takes it and begins to talk about her assignments in algebra. As she chats about her teacher and the unfairness of linear equations, I sneak a peek. She is both the most familiar face I know and the swiftest changing. It tugs at my heart to see her straddling the bridge to adulthood, her hips newly curved and her cheekbones sharper every day, yet the same slightly chubby hands I remembered curling against mine when she was learning to walk. I can't believe how long her hair is; it's longer than I ever kept it when she was young. She's wearing it like all the other girls do. I want to reach out and take one of her curls between my fingers, that hair that she has never appreciated and hates so much, but if I did she would bolt like a deer in the forest under the crack of the gun. The ire would flare in an instant if I tried to tell her how beautiful it was-how beautiful she is-and she would be gone before I could finish blinking.
I wish I could tell her these things, the things that there are never time for and that she doesn't want to hear anyway. I wish I could tell her how much she isn't like me, how she's stronger than I've ever been. How I am proud of her. How much I love her. But I know the time for that is either long past or maybe yet to come, and if I try it now, she'll flinch. So I nod and listen to her talk and my fingers work on what little problems they can solve and I am grateful for the time we have.
The last chain is stubborn, but just when it seems as if it will break rather than give, it falls free and I am holding two separate strands. She leaps up and snatches them away and is on to the whirl of her life in which I am now only a footnote. For a moment I can still feel the heat next to me from where she had been sitting. Then that, too, fades. I open my laptop and begin again where I had left off in the writing.
“Hey, Mom?”
I look up.
She's stuck her head back in to the room. “Thanks.” And then she's gone again.
But this time I smile.