Throwback Thursday: ‘Below the Knee’ by Susan Pieters

If my mother had insisted it be above the knee, I would have said something. But she had made a concession to me. I had to respect that.

I wept when she first told me, but then she held me close to her and ran her fingers through my hair, soothing me as she had when I was very young and couldn’t sleep on hot, sun-filled nights. Her hand brushing my forehead was comforting. I pressed my head against her chest, her bosom soft behind her clean apron.

When she relaxed and leaned back, she announced her decision. “All right, my precious one. It’s all right.  It needn’t be the entire leg. Below the knee will be enough.”

I stopped crying and searched her face, and could I say I was hopeful? I knew my eyes were still full of tears, for she looked at me with pity. And I knew this hurt her, too. I was her daughter, after all. She needed me.

It was all true, all that my parents had said. I was coming of age, beginning to be soft like my mother. I looked so much like her already; my eyes the exact same shade of green, my hair stubborn and dark, my hands. When I looked at my hands, all I could see were her hands with newer skin. My fingernails had the same flat tops and quickly curving sides. I could wear her rings. They were a perfect fit. And she had said that she would have longed for this opportunity, had her father loved her as much as my father loved me.