Dysfunctional families

She set the biggest log in the center, then added odds and ends of driftwood to encircle it. The seagulls kept watch. Perhaps accusatory of her use of feathers.

“I’m sorry if it is one of your cousins,” she said.

A gull called. Her apology accepted?

She sat herself amidst the constellation, snuggled closer to the angel log, and drew her knees up to her chest.

“Sometimes a woman needs a circle of protection,” grandmother once said, a black eye contradicting or warning against errant timing.

“I am encircled,” she breathed into her knees. Her swollen eye throbbed.

***

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Lisa Fox

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

“It’s the one thing I want.”

His siblings’ squabbling over their late mother’s items woke memories he preferred to not revisit. He wondered if not leaving a will was her way to continue their jockeying for her perceived affections even after she was gone.

Linda fixed her suspicious gaze on him. “Why?”

He shrugged to feign indifference. “I find the carvings interesting, and,” he pointed at his black clothing, “it’s kind of Goth.”

He wasn’t going to tell them about the hidden compartments. Or their contents. Grandpa had shown him. “Black sheep need help, Son. In case of hard times.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers