'Helen'.

At first I just accepted it, as all children accept the story of how they came to be.

But as I grew - eleven, twelve - I began to think, what had it been like for her? For my mother?

Terrifying, I thought at first. Alone, then the rush of wings, the hard pinch of the beak, the huge webbed feet. Then afterwards, discarded on the lake-shore, putting her clothes back together with hands that shook. And returning to the palace to tell her story.

But now, I wonder. All my life, those times when she's unfocused, absent - when her hands fall still in the middle of a task and if I speak to her she does not hear. Is she remembering? Or is she listening?Listening for the sound of the great wings coming back?

I'll nit the pronoun reference in the first line, because it does throw me off a bit. Same with "eleven, twelve" the terse delivery is good, but it didn't cover the break for me.