our family traveled after the war
once gas wasn’t rationed we went to
florida over christmas played on the
beach enroute we slept in those little
separate tourist cabins that predate
motels mother final-checked the room
my sisters and I had been in found her
good fountain pen under a bed no
ballpoints in those days for the next
20 miles we were berated – first
that we hadn’t even asked then left it
behind her anger spent she finally
opened her purse dropped the pen
in right beside an identical pen why
didn’t you say you hadn’t taken it?
mother wailed chagrined but we’d each
thought a sister had and so stayed silent
This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2014.
