October 14, 2009 - Fiction
She usually watched them after Sophie was in bed. From her living room chair she had a clear view of Sophie’s bedroom, the television and the house across the street. The house she watched was brick, offered one large window stretching the expanse of a room and was the stage on which the family the woman watched performed.
The woman’s house only had two small front windows that sat on either side of a white wall. Sophie liked to run from window to window, her curly head bouncing up to see out to the yard and street. She would often call her mother to chase her with a high-pitched giggle but the woman would just smile and gather Sophie close to her body, tickling kisses into a small neck. Then she would put Sophie down and return to her daily duties.
Of daily duties the woman had many, and it was difficult for her to catch more then little glimpses of the show across the street-- Sophie would need to be fed, or her husband, Stan, would require attention. Furthermore, the family that lived inside the watched house was busy- a mini-van was always coming and going, the mother waiting for one of her three daughters to run, barefoot, to the car holding a pair of shoes.
The woman would think of Sophie when she watched the girls running. She would remember Sophie learning to put her shoes on by herself, how she would sit and carefully match the Velcro so it sat straight. Stan would usually grab Sophie by the arm and drag her to the car before she was finished: he had no patience for such nonsense.
But the best time to watch the brick house was Sunday night, while Stan was gone playing poker and Sophie was asleep. Sunday nights the mother and her daughters sat on a beige couch and, each engaged in some task-- homework, laundry, etc.-- would flail their arms and talk at the television. There was always laughter and sometimes the watching woman would flip through her television to try and match a program with the expressions held by the family.
This particular Sunday, the woman sat watching the three girls as they giggled in the large window and munched on popcorn. She thought of Sophie asleep in her room and was envious. An hour passed and the woman watched the mother kiss each of her daughters on the forehead and whack their behinds as they scampered off to bed. She could practically hear the “I love you’s” and “Angel-baby’s” and imagined what it would be to be one of those girls who had a solid woman smiling at them and waiting for them to run to the car.
The phone rang. Stan was calling from his poker game to remind her to iron his shirt. Is that the television… what are you doing? He asked his wife in a tone regular to Stan.
Stan’s wife agreed, yes, she should be doing something productive, and no, she didn’t want to be disciplined before assuring that she would take care of his shirt and hanging up the phone.
The mother now sat alone in the window, her face unsmiling, folding laundry without glancing at the television. The watching woman stared at the decision in front of her: to stand in the reality of a mother’s life alone, save her children, or to sit and wait for Stan to come stumbling home.
Sitting made her legs numb.
The woman walked to the bathroom and turned on the light. She noticed the shine it made on the white porcelain sink and the faucet. She stared at the sink, unwilling to lift her gaze. Turning the faucet on, the woman let cold water run over her hands before she splashed it on her face and finally looked up to the dripping woman reflected in the mirror. The bags under her eyes slowly emerged as her cover-up smeared and bits of her thin hair stuck to her face at her cheekbone and under her lip.
Suddenly a small blonde head appeared in the doorframe, giggling as it ducked back out of sight. “Follow me, Mama!” came a voice as feet padded down the hall. The woman took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in resolve, before following her daughter into a future that smelled like hope.
Several hours later, Stan returned home to an ironed shirt and an empty house.
