Simone dropped her shopping bags on the soft white carpet of her room, then dropped herself onto the bed. After a moment of laying motionless, she reached her arm across to the night stand and pushed play on her CD player. In a few seconds, the melodious sounds of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones filled the room.
She smiled to
herself as Bachus crawled into her room on his stomach. He crept up to
her bed where she lay on her back staring at the ceiling. He was about
to spring when she lunged over and pulled the black puppy up onto the bed
with her and began to scold him teasingly. She gave him a little kiss on
the nose and scratched the special spots behind his ears.
There was a slight
knock on her door before her mother poked her head inside the room. "Dinner's
ready, hon. Oh, Sai, get the dog off the bed. You know as well as he does
that he's not allowed up there." Simone pushed the dog off the bed and
it landed with a little thump on carpet. She hurried
downstairs to see what her mother had cooked up.
Cara Williams was rarely home to cook dinner for her family. Simone was used to preparing dinner for her little brother and herself. She eagerly took her seat in the fine dining room and allowed her mother to serve her. "Swordfish? Mom, you know I hate seafood." Her mother gazed at her. "Since when?"
"Oh you know, since that little incident at Uncle Jack's..." she trailed off. "Oh, right. I remember now," replied Cara, trying to suppress a grin. Simone just stared at her sullenly. Personally, she found nothing funny about a crab crawling off her plate. "May I be excused?" she asked her father. "No, you may not. We rarely get to have a nice family dinner, so you're gonna sit right there and enjoy the meal," he said, not unkindly. Grudgingly, Simone helped herself to some green beans.
Later that evening, Simone wandered downstairs to find her parents looking at old pictures. Boxes, albums, and framed photos littered the living room floor. Seeing her, Cara called out to Simone. "Oh honey, you've got to see this one of you in your Rainbow Brite dress. You were so adorable!"
"Yeah, I wonder where she went wrong..." her father teased. "I must get it from your side of the family, huh, Dad?" Simone quickly retorted. "Well, you certainly have the Williams' sarcasm," he replied with an affectionate smile.
Simone plopped down on the floor next to her mother. She began looking at pictures of her at their old house. One thing she noticed was that there were a lot of pictures of young children, but none of her. After awhile, she unearthed a picture with her in it, but once again, there were other kids that she didn't recognize.
'They're not cousins,' she thought.
"Who are they?" she
asked, showing the picture to Cara. Her mother gazed at it for a few minutes.
"You know, they look familiar, but I can't quite remember them. Dave, look
at this." Cara handed the picture to her husband.
"Oh yeah, those
are Big Bo's kids." Simone and her mother exchanged a glance, then turned
their attention on Dave. "Big Bo?" Simone repeated. "Yeah. Of course, that
wasn't his real name, but that's what we all called him in college. The
little one's name, something with a T. Tommy? Trey? No, I think it
was Tommy. The other one had an interesting name..." Cara chimed in, "Yeah,
some bible name." The Williams' had always been an atheist family, and
were quite happy that way.
"Well how come I never see him anymore?" Simone demanded. "Oh, honey, your father was transferred here before you started pre-school. That picture was taken the week before we left. See? That's our old house in Tulsa." Simone took the picture from her mother and studied it. The one on her left had light blond hair dark eyes and a smile with crooked baby teeth. The one on her right had rosy cheeks, a sweet boyish grin, and a baseball cap shadowing his eyes and covering up his hair.
"Well how come
I don't remember them, then?" she asked. Her mother looked at her curiously.
"I don't know. They weren't bad memories, I can tell you that much. You
three were so cute together...and so hyper!! I remember your father couldn't
keep up with you."
She lowered her voice. "Of course, he
was a lot younger then, and under a lot less stress." Dave looked over
at his girls and raised an eyebrow.
"Do you have any other..." Simone began. "INCOMING!!" Bry, Simone's 11 year old brother, came charging in from the backyard, the large puppy at his heels. Bry quickly turned a corner, but the dog slipped on the wood floor and slid right into a pile of pictures...and Simone. "Bachus, you dumb dog!" No sooner had she said this when she was attacked with a warm wet puppy tongue. Despite the mess the dog had made, she couldn't help giggling. She took one last glance at the photo and laid it on top of the coffee table, intending to come back for it later. "C'mon let's get you some dinner," she said to Bachus. She stood up and walked into the kitchen.
