“They’re called bleeding hearts*, Sunny,” I replied to my daughter’s question.

So apropos to how I felt – heart shattered and scattered. Jim wanting a divorce.

But at 3, Sunny didn’t understand.

I scrounged around for kleenex in the bottom of my purse, not noticing Sunny slipping under the chain across the entryway beyond the flowers.

When I looked up, she was studying how to open the strangely configured door.

“Sunny – get back here,” I said, “That area is not for visitors.”

“But Mom, maybe that’s where they keep the flowers’ Band-Aids,” she protested, taking my outstretched hand.

* flower folk: not actually bleeding hearts, right?

For Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers, November 25, 2016; image: © CEayr