Lucy's Sketches

Chapter 2

Turn the darn lights on

Isabelle

While Lucy and I wait in the dark foyer, Josh, armed with a flashlight, goes on a mission to turn the power on.

Squinting into the darkness, I can barely make out the shape and curves of a large staircase in front of us. I think something is moving around on it, and, holding my breath, I squint harder as if doing so will somehow activate my night vision powers or something and stop the shadows from being obnoxious and misleading.

"Hey, Mom?" Lucy whispers, touching my arm, causing me to bark a yell of surprise. Turning to look at her, I see that she has the dimming and flickering flashlight I gave her aimed at herself, and for a second, I swear I see a grin on her face.

"The flashlight's not working properly anymore," she informs me, and the torch does a poor imitation of a disco light in support of her statement. Taking it from her, I fiddle with it in the dark as if I actually know what I'm doing... I don't, of course. I forgot to put the new batteries in the flashlight; no amount of fiddling is going to fix that problem right now.

"I'm sure I had batteries in my bag. Let me see if I can find them," I say, blindly trying to rifle through the handbag dangling from its strap slung from my shoulder, but the flashlight is getting in my way.

"Not necessary," a voice says somewhere in the dark, causing me to yelp again and lose my grip on the flashlight. It crashes to the floor after connecting with the bridge of my foot, leading to yet another yell, this one in pain.

"It's just me," Josh chuckles, but I still cannot see him in the darkness, alive with shifting shapes and imagination.

"Just find the light switch and turn the lights on already!" I growl. Great, now I'm hungry, cranky, and my foot hurts. I reach down to rub my offended limb but somehow manage to step on the flashlight with my other foot, and, with a loud thud, I land on my butt.

"What the hell was that?!" Josh shouts in alarm, his voice further away now. He is probably on his way to the light switch... I hope.

"Are you okay, Mom?" Lucy tries to find me, but unable to see where exactly I'm sprawled like the household cat, she trips over me and falls, landing half on top of me with a soft grunt.

"Well, this has been fun," I sigh, patting my daughter, trying to find which section of the small body on top of me contains her head. She squirms, sitting up, and now I've discovered her bottom; it is lodged firmly in my diaphragm. "I hate this house already," I moan, scooting her to my lap so that I can sit up too.

"I'm turning the light on!" Josh announces in his best circus ringmaster voice, and I'm surprised that the man is not blowing a trumpet and calling out the jugglers for this officious occasion.

I instinctively close my eyes, waiting for the glare to come and fry our retinas, and after a minute or two, Lucy gasps in awe. "Wow."

After blinking a few times, I am finally able to open my eyes properly and look at our surroundings. I was expecting to be sitting on a rotting wooden floor, surrounded by old, mildewy furniture and ugly wallpaper, but in the warm light washing over me, I can now see...

Progress and hard work!

The foyer no longer looks as ominous as it did in the dark, and nothing is lurking on the beautifully carved staircase, either. When Josh enters the foyer to find us, we are sitting on the floor, inspecting the foyer in awed silence.

The furniture, the decorations... everything has Sam's name written all over it. Bringing life and beauty to this place was the last thing he did before the horrible accident that stole him from us. Gazing at the work of his hands, I blink back a tear.