Hopeful Lovers

Part 3

Mommy, where Daddy? I want Daddy." Avis' baby said, sitting up a little. Avis felt a tear roll down her cheek. "I don't know where Daddy is, baby. I don't know." Phoenix peered at her through the wooden bars of his crib. "Mommy, you know where. Mommy, where Daddy?" 

Avis sniffed a bit, angrily this time. 

"Phoenix, sweetie, I really don't know. I really don't." Phoenix let out an audible sigh, and fell back on to his mattress. He must believe me, Avis thought. Or else it's going to be hard for both of us.

Pulling a comb through her wild curly hair, Avis looked at herself in her vanity's mirror. She and Phoenix were going to her mother, Beatrix's 49th birthday party. It was going to be a dress - and - suit party, because Beatrix was a sucker for a good show. Avis got up and paced to her walk - in closet, a gift from her mother on the same week that she purchased the house. She selected a gorgeous light purple dress, which she had embroidered with violets winding up the sleeves and skirt. Avis straightened up, and turned to her extensive shelves of shoes. She pulled on a pair of simple black flats, embroidered with gold and silver flowers that she made to looked like the flowers on her dress.

Since the age of 8, Avis, growing up in Grenada, Caribbean, had a gift for embroidery. She would embroider for several hours on end, sitting at her bright red plastic table, which was now in Phoenix's playroom.

Avis would embroider her dolls' dresses, her teddy bear's bowtie, her metal ballerina's velveteen skirt, and anything she could set her eyes and hands on. Avis sighed, stroking the pleats of her dress and reveling in the memories.