The women in my life, pt. I

 "Ma, what was father like?"

At four, Maia had just learned how to write her name, so this question shook her mother off-guard. At home, three beautiful women all stood proud and firm.

"Your father? He was... he was a good man," a hint of rosy bitterness swept her mother's beautiful face. A short frown covets in the same place where it never used to last, only the perpetual Duchenne one she knew everyone easily recognised.

The elder sister Mati arrives and comforts Maia. The mother gestures towards Mati.

"What have you been telling Maia?"

"Nothing." The mother's frown spreads to Mati like contagion. Her guilt was palpable. "I just wanted her to feel like he's still here."

"Let me handle that, Mati. That is mine to explain, not yours."

"I know, ma," pauses as she looks to the floor. "But I miss him too."

"I miss him, too, Mati," the mother hugs Mati, tightly. Mati leans to her mother's bosom and cries silently, while Maia looks curiously at them both, feeling a tinge of sadness she could not seem to comprehend.