Short and Long Stories Part 2

Fish Hook

Fine blonde hairs on taught limbs moved in the breeze. The door slammed down as the breeze left them and they were alone in the dark cold space where they no longer kept a car. The last of the day's light reached them from beneath the metal door where it barely met the concrete below.

Back inside the house, a girl bent forward, opening the red velvet cape as she did so to create the effect of a curtain closing. A smaller, toga clad girl twirled around on one foot and stopped breathless, smiling widely up at her sister.

"Esther! Was I good, Esther?" she asked. Eyebrow raised, the girl threw off her cape and wrapped her arms around the breathless, warm bundle.

"Yes Aria. You were good. Now, we'd better get changed for dinner." Esther folded the cape and helped untie the material at Aria's shoulder.

"When will we show mummy and daddy our play?"

"When it's ready. We need one more practice first I think" she answered authoritatively. The girls ambled through to the kitchen, adjusting their clothes while they sniffed the air. "The oven's not even on!" Esther frowned and walked over to the back door, pulled it open wide and looked out toward the garage. When she heard no sounds, she took a step forward, but Aria put her hand out in front of her sister's legs.

"Nooo! We have to stay inside, daddy is playing with mummy." Cool fear chilled Esther and she shivered briefly before moving back inside and pulling shut the door. "We can have maconi cheese!" Aria skipped over to stand below the cupboard that she knew contained the microwave food. Esther tried to focus on being normal for Aria.

"Macaroni" she corrected her sister, moving across the kitchen and reaching above Aria to take out the pasta. She set the food to heat and clenched her jaw, turned over her options in her mind. When she turned around, however, her sister was watching her, chewing at her thumb, her soft skin puckering slightly at the brow.

"Why don't you like it when mummy and daddy play?" she asked; she sounded quiet and frightened of the response she might receive. Esther tipped the macaroni cheese from the packet onto a plate and put it on the table.

"I don't mind it" she lied. "OK come on then, sit down and eat, or it'll go cold." Esther pulled out the chair and helped her get settled. "Water?" she asked. Aria nodded, lifting her food to her mouth. As she began to chew she appeared to forget about whatever didn't feel good; she licked the sticky warm cheese from her fork and started to eat more quickly, hungry. Esther went to the sink and ran the water, looked out from the window across to the dark garage, its door closed. Why wouldn't they put the light on? But she knew why. She'd seen them when they played.

She'd been playing herself; playing catch with the neighbour's son. The ball had bounced away and rolled in front of the garage door. She knew to be quiet when they were there. Her father had told her they weren't to be disturbed. She'd walked as silently as she could in her trainers. The son – Tom was his name - watched her curiously. He must have wondered what she was doing, why she didn't just run and grab the ball. She and Aria weren't allowed to tell anybody that their parents played in the garage. And then her breath caught and her face reddened, her skin prickling under her shirt, when she saw what she saw.

She knew she couldn't make any noise. Her eyes welled and spilled as she concentrated on breathing slowly and quietly through her nose, her lips clamped shut. She stayed as still as she could and watched and listened; watched as her father pulled the rope tightly around her mother's bare ankles; listened as his voice assaulted her, low and harsh, saying mean things, things she could only half make out. But Tom was waiting. And he called out to her. It was all she could do to lift herself from the gravel and tiptoe forwards, nearly tripping in the attempt to make no sound. Any distance would do, and she got some. Enough so that when her father lifted the door a meagre few inches, looked out from underneath, he couldn't have known that she'd seen, that she'd heard.