By Danny Beusch
The woman and a boy stand apart under a smudged charcoal sky as the grey water laps their sandy feet. She’d hoped for a saffron sun, a sapphire sea. She’d hoped for anything but this.
“Are you having fun?” she asks.
He stares ahead.
“You can talk to me.”
He can see an island, craggy and deserted. He wonders how far away it is; too far to swim.
“Call me ‘Mum.’ Please. I’m your mum now.”
She takes his hand. It is limp, sticky with ice cream tears.
And then she lets go, turns around, walks away.
At last, she smiles.
why did the women tell the boy to call her mum now?
She has adopted him. It’s a story about adoption breakdown.