" Be back at night...Mom! ", and she was gone, speeding off in her expensive Lancer

That was holidays.

Gwendolyn sighed once again. She had made so many plans for the next two weeks.

She wished she had been like the other single mothers she knew. They let nature handle the entire stuff...didn't fuss over the kids, went partying...holidaying...having a jolly good time.

But...how on earth was she to cope with this....her 25 year old daughter who spoke in monosyllables, refused to have the same food that she had...no hamburgers for her, no chicken, no meat, no cosmetics, no perfume, no rum, no wine...and why for goodness sake, no boyfriends.

What on earth was Briggie turning into...some kind of self obsessed workaholic moron.

Gwendolyn had a mind-brain coordination problem... In her mind frame she hadn't grown up her daughter.

To Gwen Briggie was still the photo-framed picture - sometimes six, sometimes eleven....sometimes 13....sometimes 17 but never older than that.

Recently, a new problem had come bounding into her life.

Often, the last few months ever since she had seen a recent animation movie on television, every time her daughter spoke to her, the photo-framed picture from the living room would morph it's way into her face and all she would see was a five year old with two missing teeth, clinging to her Barbie doll and hugging her, saying " I love you Mom". This was crazy!

What on earth was happening to Gwendolyn. Was she aging early?

With her unconventional dress sense and her allergy to all makeup and hair dyes, at 50, Gwendolyn could easily pass off as a respectable 65 year old...Often, while walking to the supermarket with her daughter in the university campus where her daughter had studied, Gwen would be politely greeted by the department clerks as Briggie's grandma.

Her tangled silver hair was never in place.

She had brought up her kid working at a bakery.

Her batter beaten worn out palms and spatulate hands had kneaded truckloads of yeasty dough to bake enough bread and cake to see her daughter through high school and then an expensive college...and then even upto graduate school.

Now, armed with an MBA, Brigitte had landed a cushy job.

And mom was beginning to feel like a forgotten bit of architecture in Brigitte's action planning mind...That's how Gwendolyn thought and felt.

When the doorbell rang at ten that night, imagine Gwen's surprise when she saw Brigitte holding out a beautifully decorated basket with a happy pair of playful kittens…the Persians she had always dreamed about.