Before We Were Yours

by Lisa Wingate

I’m not prepared to cross the line from daughter to caretaker.

Now that I’m twelve, I don’t believe in the rougarou and the buggerman and Mad Captain Jack of the river pirates. Not much anyhow.

Someday, you’ll read these and know all my secrets, she told me once when I asked her why she was so meticulous about writing everything down.

Maybe we both feel the awkward pressure of a setting that begs for something more than casual chatter.

Witnesses who aren’t telling the truth have a hard time stopping on an absolute yes or no.

Some days, she don’t want to be touched by another living soul. She only wants the dead.

He pulls me to his side and kisses me in a way that lets me know who he really likes best.

He does love me. And he is entitled to his opinion. It just bothers me that it’s so different from mine.