On the night of Marian Denote’s husband Frank’s fourty-fourth birthday, Marian lit the candles on his birthday cake, joined fourteen of their closest friends and neighbors on the porch to sing Happy Birthday, and then excused herself to the powder room where she sat down upon the fuzzy plush pink toilet lid, and cried. If asked at the time what was the matter, Marian could not have answered. So many things had entered her mind at once; she was unaware which to honor with her attention. Some things positive, some negative, and others simply were. As she began to choke against her own restraint, letting out a guttural wet whispery sob a small knocking came against the door, pulling her hunched figure upright and pressing a ghost’s finger against her lips warning to hold silent and still. She waited a moment hoping which ever beer bladder filled party guest had knocked would turn and try for an available bathroom in one of the other bedrooms. When the knock came again, a delicate raping that implied patience more than timid persistence, Marian realized its proximity upon the door to be somewhere around eye level with her seated self. Instantly she sprang to her feet smoothing her index fingers beneath her eyes to dry the moisture. She glanced at herself for a moment in the mirror to insure that her hair had not gotten fussed or that her eyes had not become too swollen and red. Her hair was fine but her eyes betrayed her, staring back moist with daze and pink like baby flesh. She reached for the door handle and pulling it open found exactly whom she had expected to find. There stood Marian and Frank’s daughter Abby, woken from her slumber by the increasing clamor of a party which was intended to stay quarantined on the patio but had found a portion of itself moved into the kitchen, as almost all parties do. Six year old Abby’s usual bed time was 9:30 pm, however, in her hurriedness to prepare the home for guests, Marian had chosen to lay her daughter down at 8:45 pm; a choice she was now regretting knowing that Abby would be more rested than usual and asking to join the adult fun. The two stood there for a moment gazing at one another. Abby upward with expectancy and Marian downward with haughty detachment, as though her daughter should perceive the unspoken tension of a private moment interrupted. As Abby’s sleep dry little mouth began to part as to speak, the resonating tension was broken by Ted Thoresby, one of Frank’s coworkers, trampling down the hallway with wide sloppy steps.
“And who is this little angel” he slurred.
“Ted this is Abby, Abby this is Mr. Thoresby”. Abby tucked behind her mothers legs, suddenly re-familiar with the safety of parentage. Peaking outward at Ted, Marian tugged against her daughters resistance, pulling her outward and pushing her forward.
“Say hello Abby”, Marian insisted.
“Heck its no big thing” Ted laughed uncomfortably. “My boys were real shy at that age too”.
“We don’t want Abby to go through life thinking that it’s okay to be rude Ted” Marian stated, rather matter-of-fact. Ted met Marian eyes, squinting slightly as though trying to interpret rather or not he had just been insulted. A couple of high strung seconds elapsed waiting for Abby to speak before Mr. Thorseby broke the silence by asking “Hey is that the head there behind you? I gotta go so bad! Mind if I...” his voice trailed off as Marian moved Abby away from the doorway to the powder room. As he closed the door behind him Ted glanced down at Abby who was watching him quizzically and gave her quick mischievous wink. Abby would never know why, but in that moment she felt a conspiratorial kinship toward Mr. Thoresby that would persist well into her teen years. Looking back up toward her mother, Marian simply gazed down at her daughter with blazing unspoken disappointments beaming down from her now dry and insistent eyes. Abby wondered then why her mothers irritation seemed to have lost some of its drama. Abby felt pointedly less unfamiliar with the inertia that tugged at the air between her mother and herself; and as though she were a girl far beyond her years, she turned from Marian and for the first time in her young life, Abby put herself back to bed.
