The door swings open and Constance walks in first, the heels from her shoes clunking against the marble floor of their foyer. Dr. Isles, a robust, tall man with a clean shaven face and slicked back dark blonde hair came behind his wife and placed his hand on her shoulders. Instinctively, Constance shrugged her coat off for her husband to catch in his hands, and he gently laid it against his forearm and stepped to the coat rack. As he hung up the coat, the door shut quietly, and their daughter, a tiny girl with wide green eyes, stepped in.

Constance placed her purse on a table to the side of the door, waiting for her husband to take their daughter's coat as well, which he did.

"Well that was a nice night, yes?" she said, to neither Maura or Dr. Isles, but rather to herself as an affirmation of their evening as a family. And in reply, Maura and her father both nodded, and they each remained stoically in their places waiting for something more to be said. Constance looked down at Maura, her eyes a little sad. "You had a good time, of course, Maura?"

"Of course." And that answer seemed to satisfy the eldest Isles woman, even though she was sure Maura was only repeating her words.

"Maybe next year we can invite your friends to the theatre with us, Maura." Dr. Isles had a deep voice, something you wouldn't quite expect from his young, baby-like face. The innocent comment seemed to strike a cord with his wife, though, and daggers shot from her copper brown eyes and her voice deepened, almost threateningly.

"Conrad," she said stiffly. Dr. Isles lips went thin and he gave a wave of his hand, almost as if to brush the reprimand away from him, and he went into his study. Maura and Constance were alone. The air still weighed heavy with the terse moment between husband and wife, but when Constance looked down at Maura, she looked wholly indifferent, which in some ways relieved the woman and in others made her feel more sadness than she knew how to express. She tried a smile but Constance knew it likely came out as more of a forced grin. "How about something to eat before bed?"

"Actually I was hoping I could do some reading. I'm nearly done with act four of Hamlet."

"Oh," Constance's face fell. "Oh, yes, okay. What about some strudel from my luncheon earlier? It was very good. Try it. You can eat it in your room, if you'd like. I can bring it up."

"Thank you but I'm not hungry," Maura said lightly, brushing a curl of her butterscotch colored hair behind her ear. She was already walking up the stairs and Constance watched her go, a little defeated, a little relieved that the conversation was over because Constance knew she had nothing left to offer.

Upstairs, Maura shut her bedroom door and paused to look around the room. It was neat, as usual, partly because Maura never let anything stray out of its place and partly because they had a maid that made it her mission to clean even that which was already clean. She walked to her desk and pulled Hamlet from the shelf, sank into the plush reading chair her parents had bought her a few weeks before and stared down at the pages, her eyes not fully focusing on the text.

She could already hear their voices lifting into her room from the vent.

Constance sounded tired. "I just don't understand why you had to say that, Conrad. You'll make her feel bad."

"Maybe she'll make some friends, then." he said dismissively. Maura could hear him shuffling papers on the desk. She set her book down and crouched next to the vent, a habit she had begun so many years ago. "Maybe she'll buck up and learn how to talk to people. It's a skill everyone needs to learn, Constance, and we're not doing her any favors by letting her sit up in her room all day by herself."

"Oh please, Conrad, it's not like she's doing nothing! She's reading. You always wanted her to be a reader."

"Yes but in order to do something with all that knowledge she needs to know how to speak." His voice was strained like it always was when he was tired of talking about something. "What will she be doing in her life with that spectacular knowledge of the human body and world literature if she's afraid of human contact? We can pump her full of all the culture in the world, we can take her to plays for her birthdays and send her to the best schools, but she's practically a shut in, for God's sakes. And you're in here having a fit because I said friends," He took a deep breath. Maura heard the groan of his office chair; she knew exactly which one it was by the sound of it. It was old and leather and a deep blood red, and sometimes Maura would go in her father's study and sit in it.

Constance, it sounded like, took a shuddering breath, and Maura heard the clink of ice against glass. "What," she drawled. "Do you expect me to do about it, Conrad? Have her talk to me? She barely looks me in the eye. She talks to Dr. Miller more than she does me. She turned twelve today and it looked like she couldn't wait to get home and be away from us. And I can't..." There was a long pause. Maura held her breath. "I don't know how much longer I can bare this... silence. I'm miserable, Conrad. I'm miserable. I don't know what to do with her anymore."

She was crying now. The squish of the chair told Maura that her father had stood, and surely his arms were wrapped around his wife, and surely her head was placed against his shoulder drenching his dark blue blazer with salty tears. Maura scooted away from the vent and placed her book atop it; she didn't want to hear anymore. Her legs shook as she stood. Her hand wrenched open her desk drawer. Inside were a handful of pamphlets that she had gotten from the guidance office at her school. Her hands felt cold as she picked them up and crossed the room, out her bedroom, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Fingers trembling, she organized the pile and straightened them so they were neat.

Then she let them drop.

She watched them for as long as she felt she safely could. Her parents were still absorbed in the study, and Maura knew they would be in there for as long as it took for Constance to stop crying and for them to each have two or three drinks. Her legs swung against the legs of the barstool she had perched herself upon. Finally she tore her eyes away, climbed down, grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and walked back up to her room.

Sitting on her bed, she eyed the apple in her palm and fixed her stare on the long stem at the top.

Imagining it was a candle, she pursed her lips and closed her eyes. She thought of the pictures in all the pamphlets, of the long arching towers and cobbled sidewalks, the stretching green lawns with shady trees for her to read beneath. For a moment, she even let her mind tease with the idea of being friends with the kids she saw in the pictures, of writing her parents home with details of her adventures and mishaps with the girls at school dances or on weekend trips.

But that hurt to think about. It felt too foreign. It felt like a wish that was impossible to fulfill.

Instead of blowing, she let her fingers roll against the stem and she pulled. When it broke, her eyes opened again. She looked at the stem wedged in between her thumb and index finger.

"Happy birthday, Maura." she said to herself. She wasn't sad. If anything, she was relieved. Everyone would be happier. This was her moment.

Finally, Maura had figured out how to please her parents.