Happy People Live Here
Page 32
9B
The Mother paced back and forth in the party room, looking at her phone nervously and then back at the guests who were all arriving, one after the other with apprehension carved onto their maniacal looking smiles. None of them at all looked comfortable or glad to be where they were. They all looked as if they were expecting something to happen, as if a giant balloon were being blown up and they were sure it was about to pop at any second. Their smiles looked like they had been scratched on with a long stick, from very far away.
“And where is the birthday girl?”
Her mother had arrived with her arms almost splitting from the amount of gifts she had stuffed within them. There were big square boxes and long rectangular boxes and a bunch of tiny boxes of different shapes with special sparkling wrapping.
The Mother couldn’t remember a single birthday where she had received anything close to that. She had never gotten anything outside of a plain dress or the occasional Barbie doll, things she never wanted and could never do anything with, outside of what their packaging said they could do.
“They’re not here yet. They shouldn’t be long.”
The Mother left the room, smiling as factitious as her guests as she tried to squeeze her way through the door and find somewhere quiet and somewhere dark to sit. There were more people at the front gate speaking to The Porter and holding presents in their hands. The Mother noticed how, of all the friends that had been invited, not one of them had brought their children.
She wished she still smoked. A cigarette would be perfect right now. It always was, when she was younger and when she felt as disarrayed as this, to be able to think of nothing else except for what it sounded like when the end of the cigarette crackled in the crisp night air. A cigarette would be perfect. But she didn’t smoke. She wished she did, but she didn’t.
She looked at her phone again.
They were taking forever.
“C’mon, pick up,” she said to herself, the phone pressed against her ear as she rocked back and forth on her feet, partly to warm herself against the constant chill and secondly, to iron out her anxiety.
His message bank.
“Babe,” The Mother said, “Where are you? There are so many people here. Everyone’s arriving. But you’re not here” she said, pacing in circles, as if what she wanted to say were in the middle, a place she had not the courage to stand. “Mum’s here. Ughh. I love you, babe. I’m sorry. It’s been really fucked you know? You know. Of course, you fucking know. I didn’t want this. I wasn’t ready for it. I’m still not. And I thought I wasn’t ready to see her, to see Korine. And it’s not about what happened. That was an accident, I know that. At least, I know it now. It’s just” she said, taking a breath before pausing and biting her tongue. “I’m scared you know not because of what happened. I don’t blame Korine at all. I’m scared because I don’t know if she’s gonna blame me, for putting her in that place, you know? And I feel so fucking shitty. We shouldn’t have put her there. We shouldn’t. I just want her home. I want my family back. I love her and I miss her so much. And I just want to tell her that. I don’t ever want to let her go. Either of you. I don’t want to lose anyone again. So come home, please. Pick me up; we’ll go somewhere, away from all these people. Wherever, it doesn’t matter. Just come home. I love you, babe. I love you both. Drive safe. See you soon.”
husband, father, son, brother, philosopher, story teller, recluse
Also by C. Sean McGee:
A Rising Fall (CITY b00k 001)
Utopian Circus (CITY b00k 011)
Heaven is Full of Arseholes
Coffee and Sugar
Christine
Rock Book Volume I: The Boy from the County Hell
Rock Book Volume II: Dark Side of the Moon
Alex and The Gruff (a tale of horror)
The Terror{blist}
The Anarchist (or about how everything I own is covered in a fine red dust)
The Time Traveler’sWife
StalkerWindows:
BedroomWindow
BathroomWindow
LibraryWindow
CSM Publishing The Free Art Collection ©2014