Labor of My Love

Ten

When at last the final glowing embers of the blazing sunset succumbed to the darkness of the horizon, Rae decided it was safe to leave the safety of her bedroom and creep downstairs. At first she had expected everyone to be gathered around the kitchen table with heads bent together as they all frantically talked in hushed voices. But when she peered around a corner to see if the coast was clear before entering, she was relieved but surprised to see that the kitchen was just as they had left it after dinner.

Rae's stomach grumbled. Dinner. It had looked delicious; moist and perfectly seasoned roast chicken, creamy mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables on the side, all masterfully prepared by Martha. Unfortunately, the others at the table were all laughing and talking in loud, excited voices that drowned out her polite request for someone to pass things to her. The scoop of steamed vegetables she had managed to reach weren't half bad, though.

The fact that no one paid special attention to her during the meal surprised her, and for a moment she experienced a sort of relief in wondering if maybe she had finally become old news. Sadly, she feared that would not always be the case.

That night, the others had been pleased that she had joined them downstairs for dinner, but there had still been one place at the table left unfilled. It was Daniel's. She knew it was her fault, and she could not seem to push the guilt down.

Underneath the mask of contention she put on that afternoon, there was an underlying sense of incompletion. She constantly felt out of place, and although she had spent months telling herself she hated the crappy apartment she had previously called home, she suddenly realized how much she longed to go back to it. She missed the familiarity, the way she had spent hours lying on her back memorizing every crack and imperfection on the ceiling.

And suddenly she had been whisked away from all she knew, set down in a world that was entirely different and strange to her.

She tiptoed forward into the kitchen and approached the refrigerator, remembering that she had been welcomed to help herself to whatever.

As her fingers curled around the side of the door and she pulled it open, an angelic orange glow flooded in around her. She blinked blindly at the open refrigerator, eyes adjusting to the new light, and scanned the rows of Kool-Aid, yogurt, and string cheese.

It wasn't those that caught her attention, though, because sitting on the counter just to her right was a package of chicken-flavored ramen noodles.

She knew the directions by heart, and she couldn't help but wallow in the giddy, child-like exuberance she experienced as the poured water into a shining silver pot.

"Water, cube of noodles and chicken flavor," she then sang quietly to herself as she added the noodles to the boiling water. "Cube of noodles, chicken flavor"

When the noodles were finally done cooking, she danced in front of the stove as she stirred in the contents of the flavor packet. "Cube of noodles and chicken fla-hay-vor!"

From the darkness, a voice commented, "Lovely singing."

She let out a high-pitched chirp of surprise and the steaming hot bowl of ramen slipped from her hands, which fell to the kitchen tile floor with a shattering crash.

"Oh my cornflakes, did you just witness all of that?" She asked the figure in the shadows.

There was a small click as a flashlight was turned on, and from the corner of the room Rae could see Daniel's face eerily lit up with the flashlight held under his jaw. He flashed her a boyish grin. "Yeah. I did."

"You could have said something!" She huffed, bending over to pick up the bowl, which surprisingly hadn't broken. Unfortunately, the ramen noodles had spilled all over the floor, and she bent down with a nearby dish towel to mop up the mess.