Fiction

The High Five

And other things my mother refused to teach me

Judy McLain
The Howling Owl
Published in
6 min readJun 28, 2023

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Photo by Alimo 26 on Unsplash

I got my ass pounded on my first day of public school. I was fourteen and had previously been schooled at home.

This beating happened fifty-six days after my father left my mother.

It was the day Mom started her new job, the first job she’d held since she was 28 years old…

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Judy McLain
The Howling Owl

Shit Creek survivor. Storyteller. Feminist liberal. Southern without the accent. Chihuahuaist.