I watched as Mom-Mom made her bed.
She raised the sheet corners like four strong sails. Plumped embroidered pillowcases until the roses bloomed. Leveled her handmade quilt with an engineer’s precision.
And I felt such sorrow for this woman, who’d always warned me that girls shouldn’t have too much ambition.
Emily Hall is a freelance writer whose prose appears, or is forthcoming in, places such as Passages North, Portland Review, Blood Orange Review, 100 Word Story and Cherry Tree. She has a PhD in contemporary Anglophone novels, is a prose reader for West Trade Review, and lives in NC with her husband.
nice twist!
A delicious bite to your story, liked it a lot.
Beautifully structured, and strong on imagery. Well done!
I agree with Adele. The vivid imagery of the mother bringing objects to life wonderfully contrasts with the narrator’s unhappy verdict.
I love this. Such a message. Well done.
Well done, gorgeous writing
Made my fiancee cry
Thank you so much for these kind comments!
I ❤️ this. I wasn’t expecting the ending. A woman born in the wrong era? Or just brought up that way? Great piece of writing.
Your ability to capture a brief moment in time and yet show the gravity of that very moment is outstanding.
Beautifully written
Hand made quilt & embroidery . . . Reminds me of the meticulously stitched samplers in Jane Austen’s house — as well as my mother in law, RIP, a proud early computer operator who left the career she loved to wash diapers, make jar after jar of baby puree and queue up outside the school gates every day at 2 p.m. at a time when there was no template for a Scottish working class working mother.