Barefoot Cinderella

6. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo

5 years ago...

I was in the attic, browsing through all of my mom's old clothes, trying to find something to wear to the school dance. I was so lost in my own little world that I had completely lost the track of time. Before I even knew, I had been holed up here for hours and I didn't notice at all.

It was the first time since my mom's death that I had a chance to come up here. I was feeling so nostalgic, looking at all of her things. All her jewellery was still here, wrapped in cotton, still gleaming like it was all brand new. All of her shoes and hats were still wrapped in their boxes, a few of them had never been used at all.

I remember going shopping with her. She used to look so beautiful, trying on dresses and shoes, like a princess getting ready for a ball. I could still recognize the packages from the last shopping trip we had gone on together. It was a week before the car crash, the crash that took her life.

Sometimes I wondered about the frailty of life. My mom is gone, just like that while all of her belongings, the one she collected and looked after with such love and care were right here, gathering dust in the attic, while she is not.

All our lives we keep collecting things and call them our own and then the day comes when we cease to exist and all the thing that we treasured are junk in the eyes of others who'd throw them or give them away like the clutter it really is.

Still there were so many memories attached to these things, that I found it incredibly hard to detach myself from these lifeless objects.

Like the red dress, the one mom wore to dad's annual Christmas dinner. And the black one, the one she was planning on wearing for their 10th wedding anniversary. The dress was a lovely, sheer lace dress. She would have looked so beautiful in it. She was going to alter the dress, add a train in the back and she had bought a similar looking cloth to compliment the dress. I can just imagine how beautiful the dress would have turned out if she had ever gotten a chance to complete it.

Looking at all this stuff I can picture her so clearly. Her descending the stairs with her arm in my father's arm. The impromptu dinners dad used to take us out on. Her welcoming the guests in our house. My parents dancing together at one party or another.

Before I even knew I was crying. It had been so long since I have felt this close to my mom since she had passed away.

A doesn't go by when I don't wish that she was still here with me.

Being up here for hours I didn't realise how long I had been up here until I heard my stomach growling like something had died in it.

Laughing at myself for being silly enough to get that engrossed in the memories of my past I wrapped everything up and skipped down the stairs.

As soon as I reached the foyer I heard really loud laughter coming from the living room. I was quite surprised to hear somebody laughing so loudly inside my house. My stepmother frowned upon such behaviour and nobody in their right mind would infuriate her like that.

Curious, I stuck my head inside the room to check out who were the brave souls that we had over today. What I saw surprised me speechless. Rhea was in there along with Nicole and it looked like they were having so much fun, more like having "FUN" for quite a while because the floor around them was littered with shopping bags from various high end brands.

"Hey Nic!" I said nonchalantly. "I didn't know you were coming over or I would have joined you sooner."

"Oh! It's alright. It wasn't like I was sitting around here waiting for you. I came over a couple of hours ago and Rhea here said that you were busy elsewhere so we just decided to go shopping like we had planned to when I was over a couple of days ago." She said.