Family Picnic

see the mailman take her mother’s load of outgoing letters. She didn’t turn back to her mother, just got up and stumbled quickly for the door, for once eager for the huge pile of bills and letters that would force her mother to take hold of herself for another day.

  The fog outside was thick and she almost missed the mailbox altogether but it appeared in the milky light beside her, a fuzzy slightly irregular man-shape. She opened the seat carefully, expecting a large load of twenty or thirty letters like usual, but only one waited in the clown’s gullet. A fat rectangle nearly square, and red, rested oddly heavy in her hands as she headed back to the house.

  Whatever had been loose in her mother’s eyes was firmly fastened down again by the time she got back to the kitchen, though the grim look that came over her face when she saw the letter was little better. Maria glanced away for a moment, sighed, and began to clear the table. She closed the photo album firmly, yet carefully, and put the caps back on both bottles of alcohol, she passed her mug to Lilith without taking the letter and gave her a dirty look that put all Lilith’s own previous pouts to shame when she tried to give the letter to her, electing instead to gather up the bottles and put them away.

  Lilith shrugged, placed the fat rectangle on the table, grabbing her own half full mug with the newly freed hand; she rinsed both in the sink and put both mugs in the dishwasher. Her mother was back sitting at the table when she was done, the red letter before her, her hands nearby to either side but not touching it yet. Lilith moved to stand behind the pooting chair, and leaned deep over the table resting her elbows on it and her chin on her hands, “are you going to open that?” Her mother didn’t shoot her a dirty look this time, that would have been too quick and merciful, this was more like evisceration, long, painful and just plain mean.

  “Go to your room.” Lilith blinked surprised. “Go to your room, NOW!”

  She didn’t wait for a third command. Her legs broke into a spooked run before her elbows had fully left the table and she was halfway to her room before she managed to regain some semblance of balance; inside it, with her back pressed firmly against the door before she managed to regain the barest simile of her dignity. Leaning against the door, stubbornly trying to convince herself she hadn’t been in the least bit bothered by her mother’s tone (who does she think she is talkin’ to like that, she just better be glad I was still tired) half an hour later when her father woke and trundled down the stairs.

  She ruffled her short hair with her left hand and pushed away from the door with her rump, adding a saucy swish as she stepped deeper into her room (didn’t bother me, nah) heading for the inviting downy mass of her bed. She didn’t bother changing into one of her bro’s old Tees this time, landing on the bed in her signature pounce-flop and sliding her hands under the pillow. She felt the nearly sharp edge of the envelope she’d hidden there (better find a better spot before Mom finds this) and pulled it out, rolling onto her back in one fluid, graceful motion that almost made up for her earlier panicked flight upstairs (almost). She flipped the envelope in her hands, examining both sides for the millionth time (like I’m really going to find something I missed the last hundred times) blank, excepting her name written in neat block letters on the front, dead center.

  She opened the envelope, and pulled out the single sheet of notebook paper, reading the lines she had nearly memorized one more time.

  Howdy Lily Lu!

  First; I’m fine, don’t worry. Though it’s ok if Pete and Maria do.

  Second; if all goes well I’ll be home in about a week, I’ve got one thing to check out and then I’ll come back. So – put all the stuff you’ve appropriated back in my room, or there will be an immediate raid called!

  Much love,

  A. T.

  Her eyes trailed off the torn scrap of notebook paper and into space as she settled into a more comfortable position. He said he was fine, so no worries right? Though as she drifted towards sleep and dreams of obscenely large and bloated families having picnics were maniac cousins slipped there jackets to serve plates of barbecue to solemn dead eyed children, she wondered what Adrian could possibly need to check out that he couldn’t do at home with his family.