The Weight of Small Hands
The kitchen smelled of starch and burnt toast, and somewhere beneath it, the sweeter smell of nerves that had settled into the house like weather. Mara stood in the doorway with her drawing rolled into a tube in her fist, watching her mother work the iron across Elias's white recital shirt as though she were disarming something dangerous.
Dana moved the iron in long, deliberate strokes, lifting it, checking, lowering it again. The collar had already been pressed twice. She smoothed a hand over the fabric, frowning at a wrinkle only she could see, and started a third pass.
"You'll look so handsome," she murmured, not to Mara, not to anyone in the room at all. She was rehearsing. Mara had heard her mother do this before — practicing words out loud the way other people practiced piano scales, testing which ones would land the way she wanted them to. "So grown up. Mrs. Halloway won't believe how far you've come since September."
The shirt, empty and flat on the ironing board, seemed to absorb the words like it already belonged to the version of Elias who would stand up straight at the recital hall and make everyone proud. Mara watched her mother's face while she spoke — soft,…