Re: Living Room: Hannah & David
She cocked her head to the side, ear to shoulder, and she thought about looking right, about being a key that fit in a lock the way it was expected to. She almost fit, but only if you didn't look at the teeth on the key too closely, and she fit in the lock, but she couldn't turn and unlock the door. She was surface normalcy, and that had nothing to do with how she was now. She'd spent years and years out of mental care facilities, and it had gotten to the point where everyone had been glad when she'd gotten married. She and Si were messy, too messy for the pretend Dad liked so much, and it had been a way to get the crazy girl out of the way.
And now she was here, in the glow of Christmas lights and with the chatter of strangers serving as carol and background to her presence here. She listened, even going so far as to close her eyes a moment. She wasn't thinking of the dark and cozier place. She was imagining her sister, and she could picture every syllable he uttered, and she missed Molly so very much. She knew that faraway look, too. She'd seen it on Dad's face when he thought no one was looking, when he was talking to the shade of Mom that only he saw. It wasn't real, and she knew it wasn't real. Mom was in a moldering house, but Dad only knew how to put one foot in front of the other while remembering her.
"Marcus didn't like socializing," she said, and it was mostly true. Marcus had taken her to galas, to business events, to places where someone came in beforehand to ensure she looked right, to do her makeup and pick her dress, but they never went to family things, to nice things. "I miss her," she admitted, and she reached for glasses set out beside punch. Carefully, she filled the two glasses filled with something pretty and red, and she handed one to him. "To Molly," she said, glass lifted and her blue eyes shiny-damp and her smile something soft and warm and haunted. Molly had been more mother to her than anyone else, and she missed her very, very much, and every day, and without fail. It was like Si, who wasn't here this year, and she felt his absence like she'd felt every year, and then the next, and then the next after that.