Wildflowers

Some people just grow a little differently than others

Created on Midjourney

Erica hid in the field among the wildflowers, her face smudged with the dirt her fingers had left behind as she had wiped her tears. She would not be forced into a marriage she didn’t want. She would not!

Mama had backed her up in her desire to go to college and make something of herself beyond housewife and mother. It wasn’t that Mama was unhappy in that role, not exactly. She had told Erica that she loved being a mother, even though marriage hadn’t been her first choice.

But life on the colony world was tough on the settlers and their numbers had been small in the beginning. Mama’s parents had pushed her toward a family rather than the job in science she had coveted.

“You can always go to school later, when your children are older,” Grandpa had chided.

But later had never come. Not for Mama. It might have, now that Nicky, the youngest, was ten and able to look out for himself. But the mysterious wasting disease had started last year and Mama had returned to Earth for a cure. She wouldn’t be back for at least another eight months.

Papa and Grandpa had ganged up on Erica now that Mama wasn’t there to back her up. Her first duty, they said, was to the colony. But Erica could serve the colony in more than one way. And if boys could finish school and then start a family, she didn’t see why girls couldn’t as well.

So today she hid in the field, the wildflowers her shield against yet another family come to court her. She snorted. Come to court Papa and Grandpa more like. Determined to hold out until Mama was home again, Erica refused to even consider returning to the house until the interlopers were gone.

She peered so intently through the tall stems before her, watching for any sign of movement back at the house, that the person who popped up behind her took her completely unawares.