Laurel comes into the kitchen where she finds her mom in her weathered blue apron preparing for dinner.

“Hey, I’m back.” She stands there awkwardly in the doorway. Laurel’s mother is the opposite of Laurel. She’s short, delicate, with her curly strawberry blond hair cut short into a bob, years of hard work and suffering line her used-to-be-beautiful face with deep-set wrinkles.

“Did you think your father wouldn’t notice your absence doing the service?” Laurels mother asks while keeping her back turned.

Laurel swallows nervously, “I was hoping…” but she trails off with nothing left to finish the sentence with.

“Oh, Laurel!” Her mother turns and grabs her hands in her own, “Why do you do this to us?” Unshed tears brim around her eyes as she looks up at Laurel.

“I-I don’t know.” Laurel uncomfortably jerks her hands free, “I’m going to go change.”

She makes a quick retreat down the hall to her room. Laurel’s room is perfectly neat. Her bed sits in the center of the room with a small vanity dresser to the right of it next to the closet and a tall bookcase and small desk and chair combo to the left. Laurel makes her bed every morning and makes sure the floor and surfaces are always clear of clutter and dust and then every morning she will go out to face the stupidity that is the general population of the human race.

Laurel curls herself up on her bed after changing into her pajamas to contemplate how much she hates her mother. Her mother is a terribly weak women. She bows over even at the slightest breath of conflict and does nothing but apologize the entire time. Laurel feels pity at this but also aggravation for her lack of backbone. Laurel had learned to be strong from her father, but her mother had been raised to be subservient by her parents because that was just what women were taught back then. She doesn’t know either how to teach her mother to stand up for herself. Parents aren’t suppose to learn something like ‘strength’ from their children. None of the thousands of books that Laurel reads either have the answers for her. So the three of them are stuck in an endless circle. Endless that is for not exactly four months and four months because tucked away in Benny’s apartment is the acceptance letter and four months because tucked away in Benny’s savings account is $10,000 just for her.