Pandora's Children- Dark Interludes

As Seen On Craig's List

“Would you like some more tea?  You would?”  The seven year old tipped the spout of the pink plastic teapot into the pair of lavender plastic cups in front of her.  She took a sip, and her eyes suddenly brightened.

“You’d like to dance?  I love dancing!”  She laughed a little girl’s laugh, airy and full of life, then rose from her pink plastic chair and walked over to her CD player and started the music.

Carrie Meyers and her sister, Barbara Kilpratrick, stood at the kitchen sink in the tiny kitchen, looking out the tiny window into the small fenced-in backyard, sipping glasses of a cheap Merlot.   The landscaping out back was dominated by a plastic playhouse, eight feet long, eight feet wide and six feet tall, cream and lavender in color, with a short chimney in pink made to look like bricks.  Carrie had bought the house almost two months ago and Lilly spent every waking moment when she wasn’t sleeping or eating or doing homework within the plastic walls.  She always sulked a little, as a seven year old was prone to do, when torn from her favorite toy.

“She spends a lot of time out there, doesn’t she,” Barb said of her niece.  It wasn’t condemnation, just observation.

“I know,” Carrie replied with a sigh, missing the girl’s constant presence within the real house.  “But with you here now, she doesn’t have a room of her own anymore, and she needs a place of her own.”  When her husband of ten years died a year ago from a brain aneurism, leaving her with a six year old and a three year old, Barb had offered to move in to help add some stability to the household.  Her sister was night manager at a local pharmacy with no husband or family of her own,, and Carrie knew she was happy to be close to her sister and nieces.

“Where did you say you got it?” Barb asked.

“Craig’s List.  A hundred bucks.  The woman I bought it from even paid for delivery.  She seemed desperate to get rid of it.  I know its older, but it was a steal.  Lilly loves it.”

“And it keeps her out of our hair while we’re cooking,” Barb added, and they both laughed airily.  A moment later, with a more serious tone to her voice, she said, “I think she has an imaginary friend, Carrie.”

“Oh, I’m sure she does, Barb.  But Dr. Watson says that imaginary friends in children her age are normal when there’s a death in the family.  He says that they become withdrawn from friends and surviving family members, and an imaginary friend is a coping method.  An outlet for their emotions.  But he assures me she’ll grow out of it.  It just takes time.”

Barb was going to add that she didn’t get the feeling that Lilly had a secret confidant before Carrie bought her that house, but thought better of it.

Beeping from the microwave behind the women sounded, startling both of them and signally that dinner was ready.  “I’m going to get Lilly,” Carrie said, her eyes still on the house beyond the window.  “You’ll finish setting up and get Meghan from upstairs?”

But Barb was no longer beside her, already removing last night’s steaming leftovers from the microwave.

Carrie walked out into the backyard and towards playhouse, grass crunching under dainty feet.   She slowly pushed the door open and let herself in.  She wasn’t tall, only five and a half feet tall, but she had to hunch over to fit through the door.  As she squeezed in, she heard Taylor Swift’s new CD playing on the Cinderella-themed CD player she had bought Lilly last year for Christmas.  Lilly had seen a commercial for the garish pink thing during and episode of Sponge Bob and immediately penned a missive to Santa in crayon asking for it.  Santa complied, and when Meghan moved into Lilly’s bedroom, Lilly had relocated her prized possession to the play house.