“Welcome back!” Mom throws her arms around me, practically cutting off my circulation. “I can’t believe you’re done with your first semester! How do you feel, college girl?”
“Exhausted.” I haul my suitcases into the house. “I’m just glad finals are over. Hey, you didn’t change anything while I was gone, did you?”
“Who? Me?” Her eyes glint with something I can’t quite read. “Well,” she says, “I may have rearranged the kitchen…and…you can figure out the other changes for yourself.”
It’s not until later that night that I realize someone else was supposed to welcome me. My dog.
Ahhh… I would have noticed that first.
A mean and dubious mother to wait for the girl to be away, but a rather dense girls not to notice her dog was missing? Sorry, but this doesn’t work for me.
Hi! I know readers can interpret it any way they want, which is fine, but I wanted to let you know that the mother wasn’t supposed to be cruel, and the girl wasn’t supposed to be dense. This was based on an experience that happened to me, where I arrived home and was so caught up in the homecoming that I didn’t realize my pet had died. My parents hadn’t told me because I was taking finals at the time. That’s what it was supposed to be. But with so few words, I can see how it would be misconstrued, and that’s a valid interpretation too. Thank you for your feedback! 🙂
This works for me in that it says a TON about the mother, and really quite a bit about the daughter too. These are very disturbed people (and therefore great for fiction). At first, I saw this as a tragedy, but really, it’s more of a dark comedy, maybe even horror.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Did mom keep her daughter so busy throughout the day that she didn’t have time to realize the dog didn’t great her?
It’s supposed to be open for interpretation, but yes, that is essentially what happened! The mother wasn’t sure how to break the news to her daughter that her dog had died while she was taking finals.