Her Mother's Voice

The wind often kept her awake at night, words from the past echoing through the vacant rooms and through her head.  A branch from the black walnut tree scraping against the bedroom window like her dead mother's screeching voice.  Her mother's voice saying she was too fat, too slow.  That seam was crooked, the cake dry, the floor not clean enough.  Her mother's voice in praise of one sister's talent at the piano, and the other's beautiful hair, porcelain skin. The two brothers both clever and strong certain to make fine husbands. Her mother's voice telling her she would never marry and seeing to it that she didn't.  A lifetime later her mother's voice calling out to collect the breakfast tray, calling out to change soiled sheets, calling out for her red pills.

One morning soon, she would have that tree cut down and would finally stop listening to her mother's voice.