text: Jeanne Gulbranson The Lonely Broken Egg 
   
   
     
   He crouched low in his safe place behind the tool shed, and held the warm egg close to his body.   The mama chicken had walked away, just like his mama had walked away from him.  If the other boys saw him, they’d laugh and point and say again “Your mama’s gone!  She hates you! You’re an orphan kid!”  They’d see his egg and try to hurt it like they hurt him with their sticks and clumps of dirt.  But they couldn’t hurt his egg.  They couldn’t make it cry.  He whispered, “You’re safe.  I’m here.  I’ll be your mama now.”   
   
   
  Hidden by the living room drapes, he watched his wife and daughter drive away.  “You just don’t get us,” she’d yelled at him.  “You’ve never understood us!”  He knew that was true.  He didn’t know how they thought or felt or lived.  His daddy told him not to trust her because “She’ll leave and break your heart.”   Daddy had said, “They all leave.  Remember?”   He remembered.   Long after her car turned the corner, he was still standing there, but now he was hungry.  “If I had an egg sandwich, it would be okay.  Maybe she’ll be back when I’m done.”  
   
   
  Tucked into the corner of his room, he could sit in his wheelchair and watch through the door as the nurses scurried through the halls delivering breakfast.   He hoped that tall one with the scratchy voice wouldn’t bring his tray.  She would always yell at him, slam the tray down and then stomp out the door.  He didn’t know what he’d done wrong.   He didn’t know why she yelled at him every morning.  Maybe it will be that little, fat one with the brown eyes today.  And maybe she’ll bring scrambled eggs.  Maybe it will be a very good day.   
   
   
   
   Publication Date: September 1st 2010 https://www.bookrix.com/-jgulbranson