Carolyn is twelve, and Ruth is ruining everything.
Ruth knows exactly how to ruin something. She knows how to get Carolyn angry enough to grind in frustration; she knows when to step back and let the heat fall on someone else; she knows when to step forward and cut Carolyn out.
Today, she's doing it all.
Right now she's stealing the spotlight perfectly, even surrounded by people who were supposed to be Carolyn's friends. Ruth sits like a queen in the circle, neatly unwrapping the last – the winning – layer of pass-the-parcel. Carolyn had protested endlessly before the party started that everyone was too old for pass-the-parcel, but Ruth had insisted that it was her favourite and they had to play it.
"But it's my day," Carolyn had said, not able to keep the whine out of her voice.
"Exactly," her mother had given her a stern look. "It's your day, so let Ruth have the one game."
It's never the one game. It's never the one anything with Ruth, and only Carolyn can see it.
The prize underneath the final layer of paper is a box of chocolates, and Ruth offers it around Carolyn's friends with winning grace. Carolyn perches on the edge of her chair, wishing that she has the coolness of mind to slouch, act as if she doesn't care, as if the whole game is beneath her.
She can't – she's too angry to do anything but lean forward and glare, holding her stomach so tense that her guts feel like they're being crushed.
"Don't be sour," their mother says, scooting past with a plate of sandwiches. "This is your day. Just let Ruth have her moment."
Carolyn doesn't say that Ruth is making it a day of moments, all of them for Ruth. She learned a long time ago not to say anything, because if their mother hates anything, it's selfishness.
So she sits crunched on the chair, gritting her teeth until she can plaster a neutral expression on her face, knowing that the whole day will be the same and that there isn't a thing she can do about it.
Carolyn is sixty-three, and Ruth has certainly stolen the day. Fifteen years is a long time, and Carolyn had forgotten how loud Ruth can be – how she can suck the air of a room into her lungs and expel it so that her audience can't do anything but pay attention.
But now Ruth is in Helsinki, more than a thousand miles away.
The four of them gather into the office, which is listing rather alarmingly to the side in the stiff breeze, blissfully alone with nothing but the sound of the wind rattling outside. Carolyn sticks the kettle on and scrubs her hands to get rid of the smell of fish and tobacco. Arthur arranges orchids in a blue plastic jug. Martin does paperwork. Douglas pretends to do paperwork.
No-one mentions Ruth at all. Not even to complain about her.
They finish tea and paperwork and head into the wind together. Douglas wishes Carolyn a happy birthday – "what's left of it" – as he goes. Martin gives her an awkward smile and wave, but she isn't offended because awkward is how Martin lives his life and Carolyn's got so used to it that she hardly notices any more.
"Ready to go, mum?" Arthur says, giving the orchids a final check – Carolyn has decided to leave them in the office, because they'll cheer her up when she comes in early tomorrow. "I'll cook."
Carolyn resists the urge to wince. "No need, dear. We'll go out, for a treat. I'm sixty-three, after all."
Besides, there is no way in Hell she's risking Arthur's cooking. Not on her birthday.
It's only when they're almost home, Arthur twittering excitedly about calzone, that Carolyn realises she hasn't thought about Ruth in hours.
Hello all! I know it's been a long time since I uploaded anything - my last year of uni is pretty hectic, but this fic's all written out so updates should be regular.
Thanks for reading, feedback welcome.
To be continued.