Busy Work

Pushing your plate away, hunger sated, you pick up your smart phone. Something had been rattling around in your brain since you got home, something that you hope would be easy to put to bed.

Susan, you text to your oldest sister, busy?

Then you wait. You put the phone down, clear your dishes, wipe down the table, then head to the fridge to grab a drink. Something to take the edge off the fact that you have the words "BABY GIRL" written across your ass. That's when the notification sound rings on your phone.

What's up?

You pause. How shoud you approach this? You don't want to sound weird, but you do want some answers. Frankly, your childhood memories of the wardrobe are far too vague, too clouded in a fog, that you can't hold onto any facts. Perhaps Susan, being older than you, remembers something.

Just thinking of when we were kids, you send, Remember playing at grandma's?

What about it?

Didn't we used to play a game in the wardrobe? Some kind of imaginary world?

You hit send, then you wait. This time Susan's response does not come quickly. The phone tells you that she read the message, but nothing to indicate that she's responding. Five minutes turns into ten, then twenty. You put the phone down, not wanting to obsess over her lack of communication. She had kids, after all, and parenting was a time consuming and distracting activity.

Busy work takes up the rest of the evening. Emptying the dishwasher. Vaccuming. Cleaning the bathroom. It does the trick and time is passed, but it did not make Susan message back.

Deciding that you were confident that she's reach out the next day, but if not you can try her again, you decide to head to bed. Not bothering to change out of your BABY GIRL pants, you flop onto the matress, throw your blankets over you, and are asleep in minutes.