Popped

Jennifer approaches the woman and her child. The woman rising, the mother standing as tall as possible, but only after striking her son across the face.

Jennifer ignores the woman and bends before the boy. She smiles, places a finger upon his belly. Rising, gently squeezing the child's arm, Jennifer faces the woman.

When the woman moves to grab her son, to pull him from the shop, the child’s eyes brighten. Tears build, like bubbles upon the end of a wand, but don’t pop. Refracting the overhead light, small rainbows swirl atop this solution's arc, and Jennifer sees not so much the boy’s thoughts, but the manner by which he goes about thinking.

“Excuse me,” Jennifer says.

She lowers her eyes and smoothes the pleats of her dress. New, purchased just in time for the season, she pockets her hands within hidden seams. In pattern hundreds upon hundreds of small yellow flowers soften certain features of her countenance. But lowering her eyes? Smoothing her pleats? All of this is affect. All of this is to bring about a greater response when she stills her hands; when Jennifer raises her eyes.

Pitched so that only the woman hears, so that only the mother, this woman, will ever truly know, she says, “Just remember, and forever, that I saw what you did in here today. Okay, Mom? So that makes two of us. Me, and your little boy. There’s two of us who will never forget. You might. You'll probably rationalize this away long before your first beer. But we won’t. And so what you’ve done? Even if you forget it?”

Jennifer looks from the woman to the boy. The impression of the woman’s hand, red, and rising to welt upon the little boy’s face, just now purpling.

"It'll never be undone."

The door doesn't hit the woman on her way out. Like a punch line, it closes upon the little boy.