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 ^{(it's beta!)}

Melinda was curled up in a blue chair, brow furrowed as she stared intently at the open book in her hands. Her mother walked in, observed her daughter.

"What are you studying?" she asked.

Looking up from her seat, Melinda shrugged. "Nothing too interesting, Mom."

It was the typical Melinda answer. The girl was so apathetic about her school work. It worried her mother, but she supposed that it was irrational to do so; Melinda was on the Dean's List every semester. "Try me."

Melinda eyes were focused on the page again, frowning slightly as she said, "It's a book for Ethnic American Literature after 1945."

"...oh."

There it was. The familiar sinking feeling. Her daughter, her bright, funny, strange daughter, was off studying these courses with their long titles and learning so much more than she'd ever learned with her public high school education, and the girl didn't care a bit. It was impossible to bite back the sigh that escaped her lips; how had she raised someone so ungrateful?

"Yeah..." the book dropped to her lap, and Melinda gave her mother an appraising glance. Sensing she'd hurt the older woman's feelings she added, "It's horribly boring. My class has the same discussion every week. We all agree racism sucks. Going over that again and again isn't exactly enlightening."

A tense silence hung in the air between mother and daughter. "I wish you liked school." said her mother, trying not to look defeated.

"Me too." came the quiet reply. Melinda meant it completely. "I'm sorry I don't."

"I understand." she answered, even though she really didn't.

"Why don't you go back to school, Mom?" Melinda asked suddenly. She wasn't blind. She caught the way her mother stared at her textbooks wistfully. One day, she'd walked into a room to notice her mother lightly touching the cover of her math book. It was as if she didn't dare to open it in case it wasn't real. "I know that you would really like it."

Her mother smiled bitterly. "I'm too old."

Melinda wondered if she meant, "I'm too proud."