part 2/3
The boy curled up with his little sister outside Mama's door.
He couldn't understand the change. Their mama was so happy during the day. She adored her ballet students, and doted upon her children. The villagers and their neighbors smiled at her when the family went to the market together, and she always smiled back. Her grin was like sunshine, her blue eyes shimmering with happiness and pride when she would accidentally drop one of the wrapped loaves of bread, only for her 5-year-old son to dutifully pick it up for his clumsy mother while she held his sister's hand.
But when the sun went down, and she would tenderly tuck the both of them into bed, they would sneak down the stairs to watch her.
Mama danced like she often would for her students, but it was different. She arched back like she was leaning into someone's hold, or grip the edge of their kitchen table as if holding someone's hand. And she was always crying; not like the kind of wailing his little sister did when she was having a tantrum, but it was quiet with lots of tears.
They would hide so they wouldn't get caught and be sent back to bed when she decided to go back upstairs to her bedroom and cry some more into the white fabric with ink stains and buttons on it.
She once said it was Papa's shirt. She once said that Papa was a writer who loved them all very much (he remembered her crying when she said he must love his sister, too, and wished that he knew; the boy didn't quite understand). When he asked Mama if he could write as well, she smiled brightly through tears and said, "Yes … carefully, though? Make sure you write only when I'm there, holding your hand. And don't say a word to anyone. It'll be our little secret."
Mama was always thinking about them. Always so open and understanding. When the boy asked her why he thought it was strange that his best friend was a rhino and everyone else thought it was normal, she clutched her son to her and sobbed, telling him to never forget that he could see, and reassured him that there was nothing strange about what he thought.
She said that one day, he and his sister would make a difference, and she would be there every step of the way.
That was why they wanted so badly to make her smile, even at night. They pulled the door open together, padded across the room, and slipped onto the bed beside her, burying their heads into her (tight, welcoming, desperate) embrace and the white, ink-stained fabric.