"Mommy?" I tug at my mother's skirt with a slight frown, I'd been mulling this particular question over in my head for a while.

"Yes Margaret?" She looked down at me with a smile.

"What do you think my soulmark is?"

"I honestly don't know sweetheart, you're only six. You have plenty of time to figure it out dear." She crouches in front of me, as she tells me this.

"But mommy, I really want to know. How am I supposed to know who my soulmate is when I don't know what my soulmark is?" my frown deepens as I push.

She sighs before giving me an answer, "You know what I think Maggie? I think that you'll know them when you meet them and then you'll realize what your mark is."

This seems to improve my mood, to think that I'll know them even when I don't know my mark. "Really mommy?"

"Yes dearest. I think so. Now come on, how about you help me make supper for our favorite guy?"

"Okay mommy." She helps me up onto the stepstool and gives me a spoon so I can help her stir the soup she's been making.

"I'll chop the vegetables and you stir, how about that?" I nod my head vigorously as my small hand takes the spoon from her perfectly manicured one.

"Mommy. Can you paint my nails like that after supper?" I touch the shiny red coat gently.

"Sure dearest." her laugh is tinkling like bells, a familiar sound that I love.

Glad with her answer I turn and stir the soup, being extra careful not to spill or splash the liquid. Every once in a while she adds in some new veggie or other food to the mix and I stop stirring until she finishes.

The door slams when she's adding salt and pepper and I nearly drop my spoon in surprise. I grin at my mother, "Daddy's home!"

"Well?" she raises an eyebrow, "Go say hello to your father and brother." I give her another big smile before hopping down and running towards the door.

"Daddy! Michael! James! Mr. and Mrs. Barnes!" I cry jumping into my father's arms. I see James shake his head. He thinks he's so mature, but he's only 8. I swear I hear him groan before Michael jabs him with his elbow.

"Maggie." He welcomes me. "Did you have a good day at home with mommy? Soon you'll be going to school like James here you know." He smiles, and I hold back a frown, I'm not sure I really want to go to school. James seems to hate everything except his new friends, but Michael thinks it's okay.

"She's not going to be in my class right dad?" James whines and his father shakes his head, "Be nice to little Maggie."

"But she's a girl."

"Yes, she's a girl, but she's a nice girl."

"Ah, Hello Mr. and Mrs. Barnes. James, Rebecca I see you." My mother greets and points somewhere near Mrs. Barnes legs.

"Hi Rebecca!" I wiggle so daddy puts me down and go to hug her. "Hi Maggie." She says quietly.

"Girls." James groans.

"Supper's ready whenever you are." my mother announces with her signature smile.

"I helped." I proudly tell them, standing tall.

I follow everyone into the dining room and we eat as much of the yummy soup as we can. When Rebecca and I are done we go to play in the living room with some of my toys. "What do you want to play?" I pick up my toy army plane and offer it to her.

"I want to play house or dollies." She ignores the plane and reaches towards a dolly with a poofy dress on.

"Okay." I reach for my favorite dolly, I've dressed her up in a military uniform that I took from a boy army doll of Michael's.

"No. No. No." She protests, and I look at her confused, "What's wrong with Peggy?" I wrinkle my nose and frown.

"What is she wearing?" she sounds upset and I don't understand why.

"She's wearing her army uniform." I tell her proudly, offering it to her so she can see.

I hear a sigh and look up to see both of our parents, my daddy shaking his head. I feel my smile fade as my happiness at sharing my favorite dolly with Rebecca diminishes. I want to share her with daddy and mommy too, but they don't look too happy.

I don't know why they don't like her. Michael thought it was great, and even offered to play army with me.

Suddenly Rebecca pulls her from my hands and just about tears off the uniform before grabbing a sparkly dress and yanking it on. "There. Much better. You can use her now."

"What's wrong with what she was wearing before? I liked it." I frown at the pretty dress, still preferring her uniform.

"It was ugly. Girls don't wear ugly clothes. Girls are supposed to wear pretty stuff and work easy jobs, not wear ugly stuff aned be in the military." The way she says it sounds snobby and I feel like I've been slapped.

"But.. But.. I want to be in the military. I want to help." For a moment I feel good for telling her this, that she'll change her mind and let my Peggy dolly wear her army clothes.

"Margaret." I hear my daddy's strained voice and look up, he doesn't look too happy.

"What's wrong daddy?"

"Nothing sweetie. I need you to come here for a moment." he still sounds strained, but I get up after setting Peggy down carefully and go to stand next to him. The next thing I know he's lifted me up and we're in my room.

"Margaret sweetie, you need to understand this- you can't have these silly thoughts. You can't do these things; you can't fight or be in the military like James's father will be. It's not ladylike."

I wrinkle my nose, "But why not? Why can't I do what boys do? I can't climb trees, I can't run, I can't play sports. I can't do anything I want. That's not fair daddy!"

"Girls aren't as strong as boys are, they can't properly protect themselves. I don't want my baby girl getting hurt out there. We just want you safe sweetheart."

"But daddy! The only things anyone lets me do are so boring!" I wrinkle my nose again, this time in disgust.

"No buts Margaret. This is how it is, and I can't change these things just because it suits your fancy. Now be a good girl and forget all about this silly little notion of fighting and being like the boys."

I feel myself deflate at his words, my daddy's always right.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes daddy." I mutter, scowling at my shiny black shoes.

"Good, now no scowling. It's not becoming of a lady of your standing." He offers me his hand and leads me back downstairs to join everyone again.

I despondently sat down again across from Rebecca and picked up a different dolly I named Felicia. She had pretty dark brown hair that I cut so it was at her shoulders with straight bangs and beautiful bright green eyes. She was one of the dollies I liked dressing up in pretty things. It just suited her.

"I thought you wanted to use your other doll." She says with a blunt tone to her voice.

"I decided I want to play with Felicia instead. I like dressing her up in pretty dresses." my voice is softer than before, I don't really feel like playing with her since she insulted my dolly's clothes and tried to dispose of them.

"Okay, let's play.." she trails off as she thinks, "ooh, house with your dollhouse!"

"Okay." I can't seem to care about what we do. Not when they won't let me play how I want.

She pulls me over, which is easy considering I'm not exactly fighting her, and shoves me down to sit in front of it. I never let people push me around, but I'm upset and feel like that's exactly what daddy wants me to do all the time. Let people push me around and walk all over me.

I try to at least sound enthusiastic, but I'm just not having fun. I'm not doing anything that I really feel like doing right now. I'm not being myself.

I hope they're happy, I think grumpily as I am forced to play house with Rebecca.

Soon after the Barnes's left and I was left alone sitting next to my dollhouse just looking at Felicia in my lap. Sure, she was pretty, but she didn't look like me and I didn't play with her like she was me. That's why I preferred Peggy, because she was me and that's my new secret nickname I came up with for myself. Mommy and Daddy don't know that, they just think I liked the name.

I feel their eyes on my and look up to see mommy has a frown on her face.

"Why are you sad mommy?"

"Oh, everything's fine dearie. It's time for bed, I'm tired is all." She put on a fake smile like I couldn't tell the difference.

"Okay mommy." I pull myself to my feet and give them each a hug, "Goodnight mommy. Goodnight daddy." slowly I made my way up to my room to ready myself for bed. Carefully I pulled off the pretty dress mommy asked me to wear and draped it gently on my chair like she told me to before pulling on my pajamas. I'm sliding into bed when I hear them walking to the room down the hall for bed, arguing in whispers. I turned on my side and ignored it, at least I could dream about it.