You’ve failed. You don’t deserve university. Girls don’t need it anyway.

He had once promised me that I could do anything I wished and he wouldn’t stand in my way as his own father had done.

CARTWHEEL BY YUKO IIDA FROST 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 105

The day of my exam I got up early. My breath turned to white smoke in the unheated bathroom. The snow-capped mountain in the distance suddenly lit up in the morning sun.

In the kitchen my mother was spreading strawberry jam on buttered toast. As soon as she saw me coming in she poured tea and sat across from me at the kitchen table. “How long is your exam?”

“All day,” I answered.

“Do you want to borrow my wool socks?” she asked.

She held her teacup with both hands and looked into the steam as if searching for a good luck sign.

A whistle of the northbound train echoed through the valley. I jumped up and grabbed my wool jacket, a large tote bag of notebooks, sweatpants, indoor shoes, and a lunchbox, put on my sneakers and rushed out.

“No need to run. You have a good five minutes before the train comes back from the te…