A child to keep

Chapter 2

A sudden knock on the front door brought Wanda out of her thinking and while I was eating the last of my breakfast, she hurried to open the door for the visitor. Since the dining room and the kitchen were connected by a small window, I could still hear every word of the conversation.

"Oh! Hello, dear. I'm Agnes, your neighbour to the right. My right, not yours. Forgive me for not stopping by sooner to welcome you to the block. My mother-in-law was in town, so I wasn't." The voice seemed to belong to a woman who was perhaps only a few years older than Wanda herself. From the pitch of her voice she sounded quite nice, but for my taste she spoke far too quickly and definitely too much.

"So, what's your name? Where are you from? And most importantly, how's your bridge game, hon?" And she was clearly asking too many questions.

"I'm Wanda."

"Wanda. Charmed." Something about her pronunciation made me suspicious, and that even though I couldn't even see her.

"Golly, you settled in fast! Did you use a moving company?" Why was this woman so nosy. It was clearly none of your business.

"I sure did. Those boxes don't move themselves." Agnes laughed far too hard for Wanda's comment to be natural. The boxes had moved by themselves in our house, but there was no way our annoying neighbour could know about that.

"So, what's a single gal like you doing rattling around this big house?"

"Oh no, I'm not single."

"Oh, I don't see a ring."

"Well, I assure you, I am married. To a man. A human one and tall. And I have a daughter." This was my cue, if Wanda kept talking exactly like this she would give herself away in just a few minutes.

"That would be me then. Hello, I'm Sadie," I introduced myself politely and extended my hand to Agnes. She looked me up and down, probably wondering my age.

"Hello, sweetie. How old are you to have such an old daughter?" she asked, turning to Wanda after she had returned my handshake.

"I'm fourteen," I answered in Wanda's place. She called me old so I could also speak for myself. Yes Wanda was a young mother, but I didn't like Agnes dismissive tone at all.

"As a matter of fact, he'll be home later tonight for a special occasion. Just the two of us," Wanda interfered again, deftly changing the subject as if she didn't want to talk to Agnes about me and more or less directly disinviting me from tonight. She wasn't usually like that. Well, as far as I could remember. Slowly a bit more memories started to gather again, but it felt like when a computer had to boot up and it took a few moments to recover all the data. It was as if these memories were not mine at all.

"Oh, is it someone's birthday?"

"Not a birthday."

"Well, today isn't a holiday, is it?"

"No, it's not a holiday."

"An anniversary then?"

"Ye... Yes! Yes! It's our anniversary!"

While I was relatively sure that today was anything but Wanda and Vision's anniversary, after Wanda had made it clear that I wasn't scheduled for tonight, I had no interest in telling her my concern either. Did they even have an anniversary?

"Oh, how marvelous! How many years?"

"Well, it feels like we've always been together."

"Lucky gal. The only way Ralph would remember our anniversary is if there was a beer named June 2nd. So what do you have planned."

I'd like to know that too. I'd be even more interested in my plan, though. In our old town I could have gone to my friends, but here I didn't have any yet. Let alone I hadn't even seen any kids my age. As if I were the only teenager in this whole town. The thought was absurd. Of course there were other kids here and there had to be a plausible reason why I hadn't encountered any yet.

"How do you mean?"

"For your special night. A young thing like you doesn't have to do much, but it's still fun to set the scene. Say, I was just reading a crackerjack magazine article called 'how to treat your husband to keep your husband,' and let me tell you, what Ralph could really use is 'How to goose your wife so you don't lose your wife'. Hang on. I'll go grab it and we can start planning. Oh, this is gonna be a gas!" Agnes disappeared out the door before Wanda could even object, leaving me alone with my mother.

"Mom, do you think this is a good idea? Letting Agnes into your, our lives like this already. We don't even know her and there have been a few situations where you almost gave something away."

"Oh dear, don't worry about it. We need to adjust and a friend is the first step in the right direction," she explained and I screwed up my face at the word "dear." Now she was already sounding like Agnes and she hadn't been here half an hour. Something made me suspicious, but what I didn't know. I couldn't even remember yesterday, so why should I allow myself the right to be suspicious. The move had probably just drained me and soon I would be myself again.