Until Now

     "Maisie!" I didn't turn around.

      Instead, I flipped the pancake, sliding it back and forth in the pan. The voice behind me seemed worried, but I knew that as usual, my mother was probably just being overdramatic. The music blaring in my ears didn't prevent me from hearing her, but it certainly gave me good reason to ignore her. While it wasn't as loud as she suspected it was, it was definitely loud enough to claim it made it impossible to make out her words.

     "Maisie!"

     Her voice was much louder now; it wouldn't be possible to pretend I couldn't hear her.

     "Hmm?" I tugged at the headphones, listening to the voice behind me.

     "Damn it, Maisie. I'm late! I've been calling you for five minutes!" I heard the chair move out, the legs dragging across the floor, scratching. I wasn't even tempted to turn to look at her, instead focusing my eyes on the cooking pancake.

     "Sorry," I mumbled, rolling my eyes.

     "How many times have I told you to lower that music?" I waited, knowing this was a rhetorical question. Sure enough, she spoke again. While she sounded annoyed, I knew it was just her nerves again. I glanced up at the clock.

     "I'm late," she claimed. 

     She wasn't though. She was, in fact, early enough to go back to bed for an hour and still make the flight.

     My mother wasn't used to flying. Most of her work travels involved trains or cars. She had always felt the need to arrive at airports hours in advance, even though my father, who flew a lot, insisted that you only really had to be there an hour or two before your flight. She had four and a half, and the drive would only fill thirty of those minutes. Four hours sitting at an airport wouldn't be fun, I warned, but she wouldn't listen.

     "Okay," I muttered. 

     If she was, oh, so late, why was she was sitting at the wooden table telling me so?

    "Have you seen my--" And there it was. Something else for me to do for her.

     "Maisie! What are these?" My father's voice echoed from the top floor. I clicked off the stove, moving the pancakes onto the counter. I had a feeling the two cases were related. I turned back over my shoulder, glancing at the pancakes. Well, there goes breakfast.

     "Maisie, I'm late!" My mother bellowed as I moved past her.

     "I heard you, Mom." I frowned. I stood under the railing, looking up. I called up, "Dad, throw it."

     "I don't know what it is. It was just--"

     "Throw it!" I yelled. 

     A sealed white container fell into my arms. It was small, my mother's 'mini-emergency kit'. As I moved back towards my probably-now-ruined pancakes, I slid the container across the table.

     "Oh, Maisie." my mother covered her face, "What would I do without you?"

     I shook my head, reheating the stove. I set the pan back atop the burner, sliding my headphones discreetly back in. I adjusted my hair to cover them, ignoring my mother. What would she do without me? My father was leaving for another business trip, and if he had left with that kit, it would have been a disaster in my mother's eyes. To anyone else, however, it would have been a case of stopping by the drug store in the airport to pick up floss, bobby pins, and whatever other necessities were needed. With her being four hours early, this really shouldn't have been a big deal.