The Fall

I got up for breakfast to find my mother making pancakes in the kitchen with sunglasses on. It wasn't sunny in our kitchen, in fact, the lights weren't even on, so I asked her what was up with the glasses. "Don't worry about it, just eat your breakfast," she snapped back at me. She'd never spoken to me in that tone before, so I gave her the silent treatment the rest of the morning. After school, I snuck in the back door quietly, hoping not to attract the attention of my siblings. Mom sat on the couch with a marker and a newspaper and looked up at me to reveal her puffy black eye. "I fell at work," she lied, reaching frantically for her sunglasses. I pretended to believe her, then helped her find more apartments to circle in the paper.