Waste Paper by Himring

Chapter 3: Reunion

She walks in on them unannounced, still in her long apron sprinkled with marble dust and patchy with clay, having forgotten to take it off when abruptly she downed tools and dashed out after Mahtan, only to discover that he was too far ahead for her to catch up with, however fast she ran.

They are sitting at a table in the garden, the three of them, when she arrives, Mahtan and Findekano and Maitimo in the middle with the teapot in his hand, about to pour. They look up at her startled and guilty, as if they had been caught out in a boyish prank. Immediately a whole series of boyish pranks of long ago flashes painfully before her eyes, at the same as she wonders distractedly whatever Findekano thinks he has done to feel guilty about.

‘A cup of tea, mother?’, Maitimo asks politely, with just the tiniest hitch in his voice.

‘Yes, dear’, she answers automatically and sits down heavily on the fourth chair.

Trying to order her thoughts, she watches him pour. There’s something odd about his movements, she thinks, but what is it? And then she realizes he’s left-handed now.

‘That’s it!’, she thinks with a huge rush of relief. Of course it is! How could she have failed to realize?

The sculpture that was giving her so much trouble—it was always going to be of Maitimo’s hands.