Smallara

Cindy felt sick.  Not suddenly. Not in a single wave. It gathered slowly as Madison and Krysi’s conversation softened into smaller things, into half jokes and unfinished sentences and the kind…

“You’re doing good, Madison,” Krysi said.  Madison kept looking down at Cindy, but her hand had gone still.  Krysi nudged Madison’s shoulder lightly with her own. “I mean it. You are.”  Madison…

“Mom, like, loves being my Little,” Madison said. She said it proudly, almost brightly, as if the sentence were proof of something all three of them should celebrate. Her finger…

“I just never thought Cindy would want to clean my cleats or work on my glove,” Krysi said.  She was not trying to be cruel.  That was part of what…

Krysi’s bed expanded out in all directions. Cindy stood on the soft baby blue blanket and felt the scale of it before she fully processed the room again. The blanket…

Cindy caught glimpses of Krysi’s home as Madison walked further inside.  Part of a wall here. A blur of framed photos there. A flash of flooring, a doorway, the edge…