Accommodations

My parents feed my sister through a hole she cut in the door to her room, which she has bolted shut from the inside, because, according to them, she doesn’t want to eat with us anymore.

When I ask why not, my mother said, “She doesn’t like what happened to your other sister.”

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Rating: 8.3/10 (25 votes cast)

Mother Love

My twins, Mary Lou and Priscilla, were adopted as newborns and over the past five years I’ve watched them learn to walk, talk, ride bikes and otherwise blossom into beautiful, thriving children. The only problem I have is that the irritating people they call Mom and Dad always tell everyone their ‘birth mother’ died in the hospital.

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Rating: 8.1/10 (16 votes cast)

Chelsea, Tabitha, and Mrs. Renfrew

“I’ll never be married,” mused the middle-aged woman as she sipped on free champagne and watched with shameful bitterness as a toddler in a tuxedo chased a group of newborn ducks. “I’m going to become one of those angry spinsters who’s mean to children and gives her cats people names.”

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Rating: 6.5/10 (13 votes cast)

Time to Dream Again

Lifting up, up, up off of the crinkly papered bed, she floated aboard the majestic, wooden air ship, where she slow-danced with Prince Charming’s handsome son, wearing a flowing ball gown that sparkled like diamonds in the melting lip-gloss gold sunset that the circus animal crew – elephants and zebras wearing colorful hats and silly shirts – was working to sail into, paddling their oars rhythmically against tufts of cumulonimbus clouds as if silently marking the beat of her dance. This was her favorite place to go whenever Mommy and the doctor started talking about her cancer.

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Rating: 8.0/10 (8 votes cast)

For Grampa, for Bubbles

“Sweetie, what on EARTH are you doing?” Claire asked, beyond surprised to see Chelsea, her pig-tailed, freckle-cheeked, pink-shorts-wearing four year-old daughter, hopping repeatedly on one foot for balance while jamming the other down the toilet, two dandelions grasped in one hand while the other worked the flushing lever.
“Well we bringed flowers to Grampa in the hospital yesterday, so now I’m gonna bring flowers to Bubbles,” Chelsea answered matter-of-factly, of course referring to her comrade who had, several weeks ago after a violent incident involving one of his (larger and more aggressive) bowl-mates, been sent via toilet flush to the fishy hospital.

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Rating: 4.6/10 (7 votes cast)