Daisy sat on the bathtub edge watching pink powder turn into white bubbles, trying to decide whether or not to start the washing machine.  If she did she'd have to listen to that ugly grind and gurgle as she tried to read since her bedroom shared a wall with the laundry room.  If she waited till morning, they'd run out of hot water before she got the shower and, worse, she’d piss off her mother.  As she ran her hand through the bath’s wet warmth, she felt him in the doorway.  Her body tensed.

"Your mother doesn't understand these things."

"Uh huh."  She was proud that not a tinge of emotion crawled into her voice.  She might have been agreeing she preferred mashed potato over baked.

"If you tell her, it will kill her."

What doesn't?  "I won't."

Fletcher took a step in, then back.  "Do you want me to close the door?"

What do you think, Moron? “Please.” Daisy reached for the paperback her 9th grade teacher’d assigned them to finish. Three chapters to go. She opened to the dog-eared page and waited, listening.

Fletcher pseudo-closed the door, leaving a sliver between it and the frame.  Daisy heard those slippers clackety clack down the hall’s wood floor and into the living room. The Barcalounger sighed as her pseudo-stepfather sank into it and raised the volume on “The Price is Right.”  After a minute, he flipped through stations looking for one of those old timey movies he was obsessed with.  Maybe Vertigo or Angels with Dirty Faces.  Movies they’d watched together once upon a long time ago when her mother brought Fletcher home to live with them.  Way back when she was a dumb kid who believed he was a human being.  That was another lifetime. Someone else's.

Leave a comment