Mirror

prompt: mirrors, looking glass, hall of mirrors

It was a hardship to get up in the morning and to look at the additional lines the years had drawn on her face. Even on a good day it was difficult, but lately it had proved too much of a hardship.

He had come up to her in this very place, wrenched her around, and asked with a snarl who it was she was getting dressed up for.

Her hands trembled as she turned off the tap. This was the mirror she had to stare into, watching the fear and loathing reflected in her own eyes as he pushed her down and violated her once again.

Her daughter could not understand why she couldn't stand on the edge of the tub to see her pretty dress the way she used to.
She couldn't understand why this mirror - the only mirror in the house that was adhered to a wall- had to be covered at all times.
She asked often why all the other mirrors in the house had been removed.

She couldn't tell the sweet innocence that was her daughter that if she looked into the mirror and saw her own fear, she might lose all courage. And she needed that courage to make the most difficult decision of her life.

How would she ever find a way to tell the heart that grew under her own, that they had to leave.

All that her daughter had ever known and loved was here.

But she knew if she didn't summon the courage to leave now, she never would.

She pulled the sheet down off the mirror and looked at the pale, shaking, waste of woman, full of fear staring back at her.

Then she picked up the rock she had brought in from the garden and threw it, smashing her reflection into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.