From Day One | JENSOO

Chapter 23

Wonderfall vs. Wonderwall

Jisoo had two books opened at her dining room table, scratching away at filling paper.

"You looking for another poem for me?"

There was a bag of dried apricots in Jennie's hands, the plastic crinkling whenever she took one out.

"Not really, because I'm scared you're going to become completely conceited," Jisoo replied, ducking her head to hide a grin.

Jennie pulled out a chair, frowning at Jisoo's comment. She wasn't that conceited. Was she?

"Oh, Jennie," Jennie paused in sitting, her hand gripping the chair, "could you not sit there?" The chair looked fine, not wobbly or dirty.

"Why not?"

"My mom sat there." Jisoo put her head down, her voice faint. "I just—no one's sat there since the accident."

Jennie took the other seat next to Jisoo and glanced at the chair at the head of the table, picturing a ghost sitting there.

"Where'd your dad sit?"

Jisoo pointed with her pen to the chair across from them and Jennie made sure to never sit there either.

"Your parents are the reason why I never liked playing at my house when we were younger." It was a random thing to say, but Jennie wanted to share it. "Your mom and dad never left you alone. One of them was always here, to look after us."

But it hadn't been that way for years.

Jisoo straightened her watch to see the time and began closing the books. Her uncle had asked her to come to the garage since it was short staffed again and work would start in less than an hour.

"I have to go. You can stay, though you'll probably bore yourself to death if you do." Jisoo put on a smile but Jennie didn't believe it.

Jennie felt like she crossed an invisible line and because she did, Jisoo had to retreat and recuperate. It wasn't what she had intended, but when it came to Jisoo's parents, she might have been over her head.

*

The house, when Jennie left for Jisoo's that morning, was quiet but there was laughter now and it wasn't Ella's laugh either, it was her father's. It was like stepping into the Twilight Zone.

"Jennie, you're home. I was making a sandwich for Ella, would you like one too?"

There was a mess on the kitchen counter, one Jennie hadn't ever seen. Not because it was so bad, it wasn't, but no one except Jennie used the kitchen to make food.

"No, thanks." He dipped the knife into a jar and slathered something on two slices of bread as she asked, "What were you laughing at?"

"Ella's drawing. It's on the refrigerator."

The fridge was plastered with Ella's drawings, but the one in the middle was new. From the cloaks and scarves Jennie guessed it was a Harry Potter drawing.

"She said she wanted to be a wizard when she grew up and took a twig from the front lawn, casting spells on everything."

Jennie imagined it and smiled to herself. A couple of days ago, Ella told her she wanted to be an astronaut because of Buzz Lightyear. The kid changed professions almost every day of the week.

Simply to supervise, Jennie sat at the breakfast table and observed her father. It would be his first entire week at home that day and Jennie wondered if he was itching to leave, just waiting for his phone to ring with work.