A single mother makes a disturbing discovery while snooping in her daughter’s room.

(from If a Stranger Approaches You)

Abigail was a good daughter, an A student, had never been in any trouble…

But Mona also knew how wrong things could go when they went wrong. She’d been a teenager. She’d come dangerously close to the edge of something, herself, at that age.

This is more flash fiction than short story. It’s a brief series of events–a mother snooping, finding something, and confronting her daughter. The story ends with the daughter wailing. I’m still not quite sure what was found. I’m a little underwhelmed by “Mona,” particularly as the first story in a collection. It’s told very simply and there’s no resolution. I want to know what the thing is, at least, and why the daughter is wailing over it. I don’t know. Just a little unsatisfied with this one…