Leaning against the pedestal table, Mary-Ellen watches the fish dabbling in the water. She interrogates the animals with a dubitative look and almost catches herself opening her mouth to talk out loud.
I am losing my mind, I was about to talk to the fish. I wonder what is happening to me. 

Clad in her favourite blue kimono lined with coral fabric, Mary-Ellen rests her right hand on her hip, unsure of what she is supposed to be doing next. She thinks of her daughter who is about to be married next week.

Downstairs, they are arranging tables and decorating walls. The flowers’ scent embalms the house. As she moved toward to the window, she put the daisy she was holding down on the table. Torment suddenly gripped her heart on this sunny celebratory day. She saw Camille crying alone next to a plane tree.

As a mother, she could never stand to see one of her children saddened by anything. She would always find a way to take them aside and convince them to share their sorrows.

Today was not a common day. Today her oldest daughter was about to become engaged to perhaps a man whom she did not love. As she observed Camille and soon after her sisters comforting her, she began to realise that perhaps they pushed her too soon into marriage. She remembered how ecstatic and enthusiastic she felt the day of her own engagement and could never imagine that one of her daughters would ever feel differently.

Primed with the most exquisite jewellery and elegant hairdo, Mary-Ellen watches over the fish tank, waiting for answers to solve her current dilemma. She can hear giggles and her husband’s grave voice entertaining the guests while she can feel her daughter tears of sadness streaming down her face and warming her rosy cheeks.