Nov 5. No, Mother No.

 This month I am part of a group that is doing a flash fiction piece a day. We have prompts. Today's was the title of this piece. Flash fiction is usually a complete story under 750 words. One of the most famous which may or may not have been written by Hemingway. Today's prompt uses the word birthday. Baby shoes. For sale. Never worn."

  

Ellen breezed into Anne’s house as she always did. There had been no invitation, no warning.

Her mother hung her coat in the closet next to the front door and began to straighten the mail on the table sorting it into Anne’s pile and her husband’s pile.

“Tea?” Anne asked, knowing her mother liked coffee. “I’ve only about a half hour before I have to leave.” Both statements were part of her plan, Operation Liberty that she and her husband had titled it.

“I’d prefer coffee,” Ellen said.

“I’m all out.” She had plenty of coffee, hidden at the back of the cabinet over the stove.

“You really need to be more organized. Where are you going?”

“Lunch with friends.” She had her third job interview with a company that needed a Communications Director. She’d already passed HR’s scrutiny. She and the VP of Communications had laughed after she refused to give him her plans for the company unless he paid her a consulting fee.

“I like that you won’t be a yes person,” he’d said.

Anne was glad she hadn’t blown the interview. If only she could stand up to her mother in the same way.

“Who?” her mother asked. “I hope it is not that horrible Marianne.” Ellen had never liked any of Anne’s friends.

“Mother sit down. We need to talk.”

Ellen had begun putting The New Yorker magazines on the coffee table into chronological order.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, sit down.”

Ellen did. “I can’t imagine…”

“No, Mother, no, you can’t.” Anne than listed everything her mother had done to annoy her not just since she entered the house, but a long list of grievances. She knew she should have addressed them earlier. It was all she could do to keep her voice and her hands from shaking. However, if she could be forceful when she had to be with everyone else, she had to shake off her fear of this powerful woman. At least that’s what her shrink had told her.

“Are you finished?” Ellen asked.

“Yes.”

“Good, I’m leaving.”

Anne watched her mother gather her coat and swish out the door. The slam shouldn’t have startled her, but it did. She wasn’t sure what would happen next. All she knew was she had to change for her interview.