The boy had been born missing a hand, on the left side. But, since he was born without it, there was nothing for him to miss and he’d never know otherwise.
He’ll figure it out, everyone told the parents, and though they knew he would, the mother wept knowing how cruel children could be, andthe father cried for all the girls he’d love, knowing that, save the special one, they would all fail to return his affections.
His mother loved him like any other mother would love a child, probably more to make up for the part that he was missing. He was too young to see the stares or hear the whispers, butthe mother saw them and died inside a little each time. In a world where it was ok to be anything you wanted, it still felt taboo to be missing something most people had.
“How about the flee market this morning,” the wife asked her husband as they sat in the bay window sipping strong coffee while the child, aged four now, played on the floor with a set of wooden trucks.
Read the rest of this short story at The Bookends Review