How Did You Know?

It was a Rush of Red.

The bottle looked the same, it was positioned right there the way it should be on the dresser. Not an angle misplaced. Yet the whiff was there.

I asked if she'd been tinkering with it.

"No," she said, "see nothing has moved."

I could see that, I told her.

She moved away, forgetting she'd soon have to walk back again. There it was, another Rush.

Then she told me, she'd a little spray.

How did you know, she wondered more than a little amazed.

Facts would have worked, yet fact-ion sounds better.

Mothers, I reminded her have eyes. When you don't eat, they know it. When you haven't finished your homework, they know it. When you've been naughty, they know it. When your grades are slipping, they know it. When you are hungry, they know exactly what you want. They can read your mind all the time. They are like your second skin. Often you don't even notice them till they are gone.

"Really?" she asked her eyes opening in wondrous excitement.

"Mothers are like skin. Do they get hurt when we do?"

Yes, they can feel those stitches bringing your lashes closer, they feel that graze on your knee, they hurt when you bleed.

"Then why do mothers like to scold children all the time?"

Not all the time. Mothers are strict, they have to be, they only want the best for you.

"Did your mother scold you?"

Scolding was nothing. Caning it was for us.

"But you don't cane us."

Never will, never can for a moment. It was years ago, yet I can still feel the pain. I'd much rather spare the rod and hopefully not scar my child.