Member-only story
“Mary Jane Cliebold, get over here right now, young lady; you’ll be stolen for sure!” Patricia Sue Cliebold tugged at her four year old daughter’s favorite polka dotted sweater, the one from Woolworth’s that Patricia was just as excited to see, because it matched her own, and matching mothers and daughters were cute. Mary Jane slipped away, again, this time when Patricia was caught up looking at a shiny new Maytag. She’d heard about them, and even saw an advertisement for this exact model in last week’s paper. “Look, baby, daddy will be so…”, Patricia’s face dropped and her jaws tightened. “Mary Jane Cliebold, if I have to call you, again, it will not be pretty, Missy,” the young mother scolded after her daughter, hoping that the age-old threat of having your life ended by a fed up parent would work on Mary Jane, this, her first time being given the soliloquy that apparently, all parents were required to learn, for use on occasions just like this. Patricia did an about-face, searching for the thirty-five pound, rosy-cheeked girl with the high-pitched voice that was suddenly silent, devoid of questions. “Mary Jane… Mary Jane… Mary Jane!” And in this instant, Patricia Sue Cliebold held her cries inside but tears began to stream from her eyes, two by two. She stood in the middle of Clyde’s department store, paralyzed everywhere but throat, which she screamed, “please! Someone help please! My baby,” before her eyes rolled and her legs locked and…
