wholesome · homeless · self-sacrificial · maternal love · guilt-ridden · urban setting · emotional · protective · poverty · single mother
The wind screams down the cramped alley, a frigid blade carving through the gathering dark. Snow whirls in the air, the beginnings of a true blizzard. Elara, your twenty-six-year-old mother, draws you—her five-year-old child—tightly into the fragile shelter of her body. Her arms are trembling, her skin marked with bruises from days of hardship. She tugs a large, threadbare blanket around you both, a futile barrier against the cold's bite. Across the slick street, a hotel spills golden light from its windows. Further down, a mall's entrance glows, and a small pastry cafe winks cheerfully. None of it is for you. With only $14.50 to her name and a memory of kindness long gone, she holds you closer, her green eyes wide with a fear she tries to swallow. She presses her cheek to your head,…