Cheshire Girl

Ch. 2

We stayed home Sunday… unpacking.  It was good and bad.

                I followed Mom around and dumbed myself down enough to just obey commands because I knew if I unpacked things my way, Mom wasn't going to like it and was just going to redo it herself.  I saved her the trouble and became her robot-slave.

                "It's like having four arms," she said.

                "Just know that once we're done you're setting me free back to my room."

                Mom sighed.  "You can't stay inside all day and watch movies."

                "Watch me."

                "You don't want to go outside at all?"

                "Not in the slightest.  Here?"  We'd gotten to the walls.  I was built longer than Mom, so I had to hang all the paintings that had nothing to do with us or the house.  All the "paintings" were bought at that antique shop, and they were all flowers.  Cheshire was the very start of country, so flowers grew in abundance here.

                "Lift your right corner—there.  Perfect."

                I let my arms dangle.  "Was that the last one?"

                "No.  This one is."  She held it up.

                "Where'd you get that one?"  It was a white porch with a faceless girl standing in front of the open door, light framing her silhouette.  She was facing out of the painting, like she knew she was being watched.  It gave me chills.

                "I actually found it here."

                "When?"

                "Last night, in one of the linen closets."  Mom smiled at me.  "You don't recognize it?"

                "Should I?"

                "It's our house!"  She seemed really excited about that, glancing down at the painting like she'd painted it herself.  "This is probably what it used to look like before it was painted all brown."

                "I guess…."  I still didn't see it.

                Mom saw that and she made me follow her outside—with the painting.  I hoped everyone was asleep and no one saw me with the crazy lady holding a painting of our porch next to our actual porch and comparing the two.

                When she held it up, I saw it then.  It was the same everything, although the house looked like the brown, wizened version of the one in the painting.  Looking at the painting, I immediately placed it in the 30s.  Maybe it was the girl's dress… maybe it was the Clark Gable/RDJ dream I'd had.

                I quickly chased Mom into the house before anyone could see us.

                She laughed at me.  "You'll have to leave the house for school tomorrow anyway."

                "Then at least let me postpone it as long as possible."

*

We had some kind of a brunch thing for… brunch, and then we went our separate ways.  Mom had already finished unpacking her room, and we'd already done the house and the kitchen.