The Mother, by Chella Courington

She was ten. The mother was thirty-nine. Taking her daughter to the big top was what the mother gave her every year though the mother knew her daughter feared the clowns. The tall ones on stilts with rainbow striped pants, floppy blue shoes. The little ones, mouths smeared big red. The mother started to bring home long pieces of wood. Her daughter heard the buzz of saws during the day, felt their vibrations at night. The sounds stopped, the garage doors lifted. She watched her mother walk on stilts down the drive and turn left into the falling sun.