Waif

by Samantha Kolesnik

“She’s not going to do cross-stitch, for chrissake. She’s got a brain.” My brother had a good laugh at that. I might’ve, too. At the time, it had felt good to laugh at anyone else, so long as no one was laughing at me.

Daughter and father laugh together at the stupidity of the mother, the joke she cannot understand, they smirk and share meaningful glances when Mother speaks. She doesn’t understand, she’s only a woman. Until daughter grows up and both realize she is a woman, she is still what they laughed at the mother for being.