Gloria was on a walk one morning, she was thankful that it was a brand new year. Hopefully that meant that her friends and family would have better days ahead of them. Gloria didn't like that a lot of her friends and family had to be separate from one another due to social distancing, but she was glad when she could go on a walk during the day. Lots of other people happened to be out as well to at least feel somewhat normal again, among them was a 6 year-old Latino girl with her heavy-set middle age mother.
"Come on Melinda, we have to go to the bank , then we have to go to the grocery store, then we have to go back home." The woman said to her young daughter.
"But I don't want to do that! I want to play with my friends! I want to have fun!!!" Melinda stomping her foot.
Melinda's mother pointed her index finger at her and looked at her very angrily.
"You will do as your told young lady or else you'll be in trouble." Melinda's mother, Olivia said to her as Melinda rolled her eyes.
As Gloria began to walk around them, she didn't notice it, but her ring fell off her finger without her notice as she continued walking on. Little Melinda thought the ring looked very pretty and picked it up to put it on her own finger.
"Melinda, come on, I want to get all of this done today, stop dawdling." Olivia said as she pulled her daughter's arm.
'Stupid Mommy, making me do all this boring grown up stuff.' Melinda thought as they happened to be going by a park on their walk.
'I wish Mommy was young like me to want to play on the playground like I do.' Melinda thought as she looked ahead of her but didn't see her mom but instead now saw a girl her age in clothes too big for her age.
"Hi, I'm Livvy Cruz, want to play with me?" The girl asked.
"Uh...hi? Did you see my mom? Her name is....uh...Olivia...Cruz." Melinda asked the girl confusingly telling her what her mother always told her when they got separated.
"Ha ha, that's funny, that's my full name too. But I don't like it, just call me Livvy." The girl said as she rushed off to the playground still wearing oversized clothes.
'That...that girl can't be my mommy, can she? I was just thinking about wanting my mom to be my age and now this girl appears where my mom was. How can she possibly...?" Then Melinda had a thought and looked down at the ring that girl had dropped.
"No way." Melinda said to herself thinking that the idea of the ring she found being magic was ridiculous.
Melinda then looked at the playground she was in and while there were plenty of people who were looking at her young mother confusingly, the rest of them were still having a good time nonetheless. Melinda then thought if the so called 'magic ring' could work on her mother, then maybe it could work on someone else. Melinda considered several people now, including herself and her mother.