My daughter is gone. I sit at this peaceful place she made for herself and wish she’d come home. I miss her so much. John tells me again that the woman standing in the doorway is my daughter, and that he is my son.

Oh, John, you know our son is just a baby. And who is this woman who has taken over my kitchen? My home? My husband?

I listen to the two of them downstairs. I hear them talking, laughing, watching television together.

They can’t fool me. I know who my my own daughter is.

And she’s gone.

This week’s writing prompt is such a pleasant picture. And yet something compelled me to explore, not the way we lose memory, but the gradual way we begin to lose our own lives. The way our past can seem like soft water, slipping through our fingers when we try to cup and hold it. How fiercely we fight to keep the past we remember, and how the very act of trying seems to let it slip away.

If you’d like to join the fun, go check out the prompt for Friday Fictioneers at Rochelle Wisoff-Fields‘ blog. Write your own story, post it online, then click on the frog and add your story so we can all read it. I’ll see you there!