"I think I finally get it."

"Get what?" There was something about the look in his eyes, the confidence, the surety, that had me swallowing hard.

"You." And as he smiled, it was almost smug. "I get you, Oz. You're a little, Aren't you?"

If only I had known at the time just how much those few little words were going to change my life.

The Little Of Oz Series

/"Mom,/" I asked as I sat on her kitchen counter, legs swinging as I chugged away at a sneaky, over my limit, cola from a cool glass bottle.

/"Yes?/" she asked, glancing up from the table where she was filling in some forms. She had her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and her hair had been drawn back into a tight ponytail.

In that moment, as the thin dregs of daylight seeped through the double glass doors, hitting her face in a way that seemed to vanquish the lines that time had built, I was reminded of a memory from a long ago time. It was a fuzzy memory, but it had stayed with me for years. I had fallen from my bike and shredded the skin of my hands and knees.

She had sat me on the counter, much like I was now, just in a different kitchen that now only existed in my mind, and she had tended to my every scrape, telling me how brave I was and how much she loved me.

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