[inspired by a Rose is Rose comic in the Sunday paper]

"Can you really fly?" she asked.

"Yeah, if the wind's right. Hand me that sheet!" Claire reached for it, and
Anna unpinned it from the line and handed it to her.

Claire stretched her arms above her head, holding the sheet out and it
started to flap in the wind. She took a running leap and took a somersault
through the air, seeming to hang at an impossible angle as she swung about.
She let go of one corner of the sheet as she neared the ground again and
dropped gracefully the last few inches, the sheet trailing to the ground
after her.

"Wow. Where'd you learn to do that?" 

"I don't know. It just seemed to come naturally. I was helping my mother
hand laundry when I was little and the wind picked up ... It just happened."

"What did your mom say?"

"'That's my girl!' she shouted at me. She was grinning. I'd never seen her
that happy."

"That's so cool. Mine would have just freaked out."

Claire shrugged and grinned. She had more memories of her mother like that
after that. She had learned to fly in any breeze at all, and her mother had
shown her how to control where she landed. That summer they had practiced
landings jumping off the dock into the lake.

"Where does your mother live?" asked Anna. Claire froze and seemed to stare
into space. "Claire? You okay?" Anna looked concerned.

"Yeah, whatever." She still looked distant.

Anna frowned and hugged Claire. Claire shook her head and tried to focus on
the present.

* * * 

Claire woke feeling panicked and turned to look at the clock. 2:00. She
rolled over and tried to sleep, but her heart was racing and she was having
trouble breathing. She groggily stood up and opened the window to try to
calm down.

The smells of the city and the orange glow of streetlights flooded in as she
opened it. She sighed and tried to shut out the unpleasant smells and feel
fresh air. She always felt better when there was fresh air, and in the city
it was so hard to find. If the wind was strong and she was in a park,
sometimes she felt like she was at home, at peace. It was those times that
her mother felt close by. The rest of the time, she felt like a dream, a
memory.