A/N - This story planted itself in my head after 6.04. While it has been very clear even before that, we could see how different the memory of Thatcher was for Lexie and Meredith. In this story, I'll attempt to make on-the-spot shots (if that's not a word, it is now) of their lives in different ages. For every shot from Meredith's life at a certain age, we will get one from Lexie's when she was the same age. Since I guess it differs loosely seven or eight years between them (or does anyone has a more accurate, evidence-based truth here?), it means their stories will take place in different years and times. Basically, I want to explore a little of how their childhoods were different and what it meant for them as they grew up.
The shots are written from their perspective, so I've tried to make the language 'simple', imitating how a child would percieve the world and express herself. Since it's not time-sensitive and not follows canon, I'll update whenever I have the time to write a new chapter. In this first one, we'll meet them when they are six years old. I hope you'll enjoy the story. I'd be happy to hear any thought of it.
-----
Meredith
early eighties
Meredith took teeny tiny bites of her grilled cheese sandwich mommy had placed before her. She knew they were in a hurry – they always were – but she could never seem to eat fast and efficient enough.
"Mommy?"
"Hmm?" Mommy didn't turn around from where she was standing at the fridge, putting away the sliced cheese and the orange juice – she'd forgot to buy the smooth one again, but Meredith resisted to point that out and pretended to like the fruit bits even if she had to swallow hard to get them down. "Hurry up, Meredith, or we will never get out of here."
"Mommy, are you going to pick me up from school today?"
That day daddy hadn't come for her and she had been sitting alone with Ms. Underwood, coloring red circles in what felt like an eternity was still way too easy to recall. At first it had been kind of fun being the only child there. She could press the piano keys without anybody yelling at her, or crawl into the large wooden house and pretend she was in a cave hiding from wild bears. Ms. Underwood had given her grown up tasks, like cleaning the tables and putting the glasses from the afternoon snack in the dishwater machine and she had felt proud to be helping. But as the minutes ticked by, Ms. Underwood had started to pace and her calm smiles had changed to strained, and after the third pointless phone call, exasperated and it wasn't fun anymore.
Even though she knew mommy had come at last, and that she hated it when she asked, she couldn't help it. She had to be sure, because if you weren't, then one day people could just disappear.
"Yes, Meredith," mommy said with a sigh. "I'm picking you up today, but we have to go. Bring that sandwich if you want, we need to get you dressed."
"I want braids," Meredith tried. "Like Jenna." The girl sitting next to her in school had worn her long, dark hair that way yesterday and Meredith had been watching them in awe.
"Jenna's afro-american," mommy said, ushering her from her seat. "braids like that won't go with your hairtype. Let's move, shall we?"
Meredith obediently stood up, leaving her half-eaten breakfast and went out to the hall. They were living in an apartment with three rooms now. Her house in Seattle had been much bigger, but mommy said they should get a house as soon as they had settled down a little. Meredith didn't know when that was. The hall was pretty narrow, but mommy insisted on having each thing on its place, so it was clean and easy to find stuff. She bent down to make sure her red boots were safely on her feet and then reached for her jacket. It was the one daddy had bought for her last spring, and she hadn't grown out of it. She hoped she never would. It was pale pink with flowery lining and even though she knew he had thought it would be impractical when she got dirty, he hadn't been able to resist her when she had tugged at his sleeve and promised him how much she liked it.
Mommy whirlwinded out in the hall, her feet already in her pumps and her shoulder bag in her hand. She threw on her coat, then bent down to zip Meredith's jacket.
"You have to learn to do this yourself," she sighed, but with no real irritation in her voice. "You're a big girl now, Meredith."
She impatiently ushered Meredith out so she could lock the door and had already started the car when Meredith climbed into it, putting her backpack at the seat beside her.
"Mommy, when can I sit in the front without a car seat?"
"When you're big enough," mommy answered absently.
"But you said a was a big girl," Meredith pointed out. "Car seats are for babies."
Mommy didn't answer that, busy swearing at a red light as she was. Meredith looked out of the window. The Boston mornings were so much more stressed than she ever remembered from Seattle. Of course, it used to be daddy who took her to day care and he usually let her sleep in. Mommy was almost always gone when Meredith had breakfast. She and daddy used to walk, too, since mommy took the car to the hospital. Sometimes they stopped by the park and daddy let her climb the monkey bars while he held her securely, or pushed her on the swings. He almost never said they were in a hurry.
"Okay, Meredith, no more daydreaming." Mommy's voice broke her thoughts. "Don't forget your backpack. I packed your lunch box. Have a good day."
"Bye, mommy," Meredith said in a small voice, knowing there was no point in prolonging the fact that she had to go inside the school all alone. She trudged over the school yard, trying not to walk into someone. They had managed to arrive at the same time as the school bus and what seemed like a billion of kids were running towards the entrance at once.
She quickly put on her slippers and hooked her jacket on the strawberry that represented her place in the cloakroom. Getting the zipper down was no big deal and she wished mommy could see that.
When all the kids in her class had settled down in their desks, waiting for Ms. James to start the morning assembly, it was as noisy as always. Beside her, Jenna squirmed in her seat to talk to her best friend Lynn in the row behind them. Meredith had no one to turn around to like that even if she had been in the class for almost a semester and a half. She gazed longingly at Jenna's braids. She wanted to reach out and touch them, but didn't dare. Mommy didn't like to be touched, and maybe Jenna would get mad at her if she tried.
Balancing her tongue tip on her lips, she instead concentrated hard on copying the letters from the blackboard as Ms. James had asked them to. She had been able to write her name for a long time now and she knew she got all the letters right because Ms. James had told her so. One of the boys in her class, Joey, used to write his name backwards. Ms. James said it was because he had lived in Egypt before he moved back to Boston, and that's how they write Arabic. Meredith thought it was silly to write backwards, but she hadn't said that.
She was taken out of her thoughts when Ms. James asked her and Matthew to help distribute papers and crayons to the class. Meredith eagerly took the box with the crayon sets and handed them out to her classmates. She knew what was coming. Ms. James would get the book they were in the middle of, and they got to paint while she read aloud to them from it. She was happy they got to listen to stories in school because mommy never told her any. She'd thought that was because she was too big, but since they did it in class, she wasn't sure anymore.
Grabbing the last crayon box and sitting down at her seat again, she carefully put her blank paper aside and started with lining up the crayons in even rows, sorted after color. Except for the red ones. She never used those anymore. As Ms. James started reading from the chapter where they had ended last time, she took the brown crayon and drew a large circle. Listening absentmindedly to the words, she filled her circle with small figures. Without realizing it, she'd soon drawn a little girl with a man and a woman next to her. She'd used the yellow crayon to color the girl's plaits and the dark blue one for the woman's clothes.
"In the evenings, after he had finished his supper of watery cabbage soup," Ms. James read, "Charlie always went into the room of his four grandparents to listen to their stories, and then afterwards to say good night."
Meredith froze just as she was about to paint stripes on the man's shirt. That was what she used to do too when they still lived with daddy. Not that they used to eat watery cabbage soup – it didn't sound like it tasted very good – but he was the one who used to put her to bed at night and he always, always read her a story. Most nights, she begged him for more and more until he had to put on his serious voice and say that she had to sleep but one night, when she had been snotty and tired all day but when it seemed impossible to sleep, he had swept a quilt around her and taken her out on the front porch. She'd sat in his lap while he slowly rocked the old swing back and forth and quietly pointed out the stars for her.
She felt a heat inside her and bit her lip the absolute hardest she could not to cry. It was silly to hope for mommy to do that. They didn't even have a porch or a swing here. When she had the flu last fall, mommy had taken her to the hospital and she had slept in one of the small rooms with beds while mommy was working. Even if mommy said there was no better place than a hospital when you got sick, she still missed her own bed and daddy's calm humming in the kitchen. But he hadn't come to see her since mommy had packed their things and taken her here. She had often wondered how far it was. Once, she had looked at the large map over America that hung in their classroom.
"Ms. James," she had asked shyly after having studied it seriously for a long time. "I can't see Boston."
Ms. James had laughed, but it was a gently laugh, and she had bent down beside Meredith. "This is just a map over the states. Boston is in Massachusetts. It's over here."
Meredith had pondered this for a moment. "And Seattle?" she had prompted.
"It's in Washington," Ms. James had said and pointed at the other side of the map.
On the other side of America. It must be far. Meredith didn't remember much of when she and mommy took their trip, but she had a fleeting memory of a road that never seemed to end and that mommy had told her to sleep all the time. Daddy could be on his way in his car, but it was so far that he hadn't got here yet. Or he didn't know the way. Maybe he would never knock on the door one night, when she was watching The Muppet Show and mommy sat at the table reading important job papers. Maybe he would never laugh and call her his little troll again.
Angrily, she reached for the black crayon instead of the green one she'd used to color the shirt. If daddies could just stop coming, then they shouldn't be in her drawing. Holding the crayon in a tight grip, she wielded her hand in sweeping gestures over her paper, almost completely hiding the man and his green shirt with no stripes.
She didn't realize until Ms. James bent down at her desk that she had stopped reading the story and that the other kids already had rushed against the door to play outside during recess. Refusing to look at her teacher, she grabbed the dark gray crayon, but she didn't have it in her to make the lines large and thick this time. At last, she let the crayon go and just sat there, not wanting to look down at her paper and not at her teacher.
"Meredith," Ms. James said softly. "I see that you wanted to finish your drawing before taking a break. Do you want to tell me about it? Is this you?" She put her finger at the girl with the yellow hair.
Meredith pressed her lips together and didn't answer. She didn't want to talk to Ms. James. She didn't want to do anything at all.
"Meredith..." Ms. James began. "It's okay to talk about it."
"No!" Meredith pushed the crayons and the paper over the edge and stood up so quickly that the chair fell backwards. It wasn't okay to talk about it. Each time she asked mommy about when daddy would come visit, she got that strange face and said that Meredith should go to her room. And if Meredith asked again, her voice got cold and dangerous. It wasn't okay. She knew her mommy wouldn't like her drawing either. She had painted dark colors before on her papers. Ms. James had talked quietly with mommy when she came to pick her up that day, and then mommy had been in a bad mood all night. It wasn't okay.
"Meredith," Ms. James said. "I understand if you're upset, but that's not how we do it here, which I'm sure you know. We don't knock things of our desks or make our chairs fall like that. Now, I want you to pick your things up again and..."
"No!" Meredith shouted again. She didn't really know why. The bad feelings were just welling up inside her chest and she couldn't do anything about it. She turned and ran out of the classroom, only stopping briefly to grab her jacket. She ran until she almost couldn't breathe anymore, which was when she reached the high fence that surrounded the soccer field. She sank down at the ground with her back resting against the fence. Fumblingly, she put on her jacket, but once again, she couldn't get her zipper up. She had no scarf either. Mommy had forgot that this morning. Trying not to mind that the wind was chilly, she drew her knees up to her chest and focused on not crying. Daddy had told her that you could get rid of the bad feelings if you just kept thinking happy thoughts. She tried, she really did, but it seemed like every happy thought she could think of had something to do with daddy. That just made her think about how he was not here and that was a sad thought.
She took a shallow breath to keep the tears at bay and when she looked up again, two big boys stood before her. She thought they maybe went to third grade, because she vaguely recognized one of them as a boy that once had come to walk Lynn home together with her brother.
"Are you here all by yourself?" one of them asked her. She bit her lip. His voice wasn't nice. It wasn't like he was worried about her and wanted to make sure she was okay. Still, she nodded cautiously. The boy exchanged a look with his friend and snickered.
"Jake, did you forget your hat at home?" he asked and grinned broadly.
The other boy run his fingers through his crew cut. "Why, Rob, I think I did," he replied and laughed at the private joke Meredith yet hadn't been let in on.
"Sorry, girl, Jake needs one," the first boy said and before Meredith knew what had happened, he snatched her hat, the brown and white one with funny furry balls in strings mommy had brought home for her after two ear infections.
"Give it back," she said, clumsily getting back up on her feet. "It's mine."
"'It's mine'," Rob imitated with a mock voice. "Well, now it's Jake's. Unless you take it, of course."
He held it teasingly out for her. She knew there was a snag in it somewhere, but she reached for it anyway. Just when it was out of reach for her, he threw it over to Jake, who easily caught it. He put it on and pretended to pose like one of the models she'd seen on T.V. Knowing it was meaningless, she walked over to him and tried to get it back. The boys seemed to have a great time and tossed it back and forth, laughing at her futile attempts to take it back, until something burst inside her. It was like with Ms. James. She hardly knew what she was doing when she ran right into Jake, shoulder-first.
"Stop it!" she cried. "It's mine! Stop it!"
At first, he seemed perplexed, like he hadn't been ready for a little girl to take up a fight, but then he took a step backwards and pushed her hard. Despite stumbling a little, she didn't fall though because Rob was suddenly close to her on the other side. He pushed her over to Jake. In the corner of her eye she saw something brown and white lying at the ground, forgotten for this even more funny game. After the fourth or fifth push, a hard one that almost made her slip in the mud and that surely would give her a bruise on the left shoulder, she let out a shrill cry. It was like a monster was let loose in her chest. She kicked and waved her fists and didn't care where she hit. They looked actually stunned, no matter that she was tiny or that she was a girl. Her desperation seemed to scare them a little bit and not until someone took her in the arm and simply lifted her away from them, she stopped.
"What on earth is going on here?" Ms. James looked sternly at her. "Meredith?"
She just shook her head, unable to say anything for herself. She looked down at the ground instead.
"She went totally crazy," Rob said in a high-pitched voice. "We were just talking to her."
"Yeah, we were just having some fun," Jake added. "She must be mental or something, just jumping on us like that." He touched his face, where there were several scratches and shook his head.
Summoned by the turmoil in their end of the school yard, Mr. Sutton in fifth grade came up to them just in time to hear Jake's statement. He looked suspiciously at the boys, but didn't follow up.
"Meredith?" he prompted. "Is that what happened?"
"They took my hat," she whispered when she thought she could look at him without crying.
She saw everybody's heads turn to the left, where it lain forgotten, the furry balls curling up around it, wet and muddy from being smashed in the ground.
"We were just goofing around," Rob said and shrugged. "Here," he said, walking over and holding it out for her. Meredith saw that he limped slightly and thought that she must have kicked his shins pretty hard. She knew it shouldn't, but it made her feel a little better.
"Meredith," Ms. James sighed. "I thought I made it clear earlier. That's not how we do it here."
"They shouldn't have taken something that was yours," Mr. Sutton said and looked sternly at the boys. "But it's not allowed to hit people like that, young lady. If something happens, you come to a teacher and ask them for help."
"I want you to say 'I'm sorry' to Rob and Jake," Ms. James went on. "If you do that, we can go inside and have lunch and forget that this happened. Doesn't it sound like a good idea?"
Meredith felt the monster in her chest roar to life again, but she forced it to keep quiet. It was no idea. Running and getting angry hadn't got her far today, no matter how unfair everything was. She looked up in defeat.
"Sorry," she said in a resigned voice, careful not to meet anyone's eye. She took the hat Rob was still holding out for her and turned around and started walking towards the school.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. She ate her lunch – peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a little bag of Lays – and solved math problems from the black board, and participated unenthusiastically in the science experiment involving water and sugar everyone else seemed to think was really fun. Ms. James had tried to talk to her on the way into the classroom, but she hadn't answered, and she had been let alone be during class time.
When the bell finally rang, she slowly made her way out in the hallway together with the others. Not late like many days, mommy stood at her strawberry and waited for her. Meredith knew she should smile like a good girl, but she couldn't. She knew that any time now, Ms. James would pop up and tell mommy what had happened. And as if she had heard her thoughts, she stuck her head out of the classroom.
"Dr. Grey? May I have a word?"
Mommy gave her a strange look, but she didn't pretend to hear and tried to seem very busy taking down her jacket from her hook and changing from slippers to her boots. She heard mumbling voices through the thin walls while she slowly strapped her Velcros and angrily stuffed the hat into her pocket. Mommy would think it was her fault too. She'd bet she thought it was her fault daddy didn't wanna come as well. She didn't remember it, but she'd probably been this bad back in Seattle. Maybe she had been so horrible that daddy couldn't stand her anymore. That must be why mommy used to say what she always said whenever Meredith had done something she didn't like. She would use that voice that was some kind of mix between anger and disappointment that make Meredith shrink just by thinking of it.
"I thought I had raised you better than this."
She jumped when she realized the voice wasn't just in her head and that mommy was standing behind her. Without looking at Meredith, she started walking towards the parking lot, apparently not wasting any more time on this than that, at least not here in front of Ms. James. Meredith slowly followed, trying to focus on balancing her tongue tip at her lower lip, so that she wouldn't give in for the bad feeling once again.
Tonight, in her bed, if she curled up under the covers when mommy had switched off the light and closed her own door. She could cry then.
-----
Lexie
early nineties
"Are you excited about tomorrow, Lexie?"
Mommy smiled at her where she was rummaging through the laundry stack on the floor. The cartoons had just ended and she was sitting at the edge of the couch in her bathrobe, her hair still wet from her bath. She nodded eagerly.
"Are you gonna come in real early?" she asked, almost bouncing up and down even if she knew mommy didn't like her jumping on the furniture. She and Molly used to do that in their beds anyway, when mommy was downstairs preparing dinner and they were alone at the second floor. "Even if it's Saturday?"
"Yes, Lexie, I promise we're gonna come wake you up early. And then we've got the whole day to celebrate." She pulled out a couple of different pajamas. "Which one do you want, sweetie, the yellow one with frogs or the green striped one?"
Lexie considered this. "The yellow one," she decided at last. Mommy helped her change into it and then let her sit in her lap while she brushed Lexie's long hair. The steady, even motion was lulling and Lexie couldn't help but yawn.
"Okay, it's time for bed," mommy said as if on cue.
"No!" Lexie protested. "I want to wait for daddy!" He had been out with the people from his job tonight, so she and Molly had had dinner alone with mommy. It was not often he came home late, but all the other times it had happened, she had fallen asleep before she had the chance to see him. She was determined that wouldn't happen today.
Mommy looked like she wanted to object, but just then they both heard the door open. Lexie lit up in a big smile.
"Daddy!" she exclaimed. "You're home!" She put her bare feet on the carpet and rushed forward to hug him.
Daddy looked down at her and ruffled her hair. "Aren't you in bed yet?"
Lexie shook her head proudly.
"Well, she is going now," mommy interjected as she reached forward to kiss daddy lightly.
"Yeah, I was told someone is turning six tomorrow," daddy said and smiled. "You'd better want to wake up early for that, won't you, princess?"
"Me! I will be six!" Lexie jumped up and down and pulled daddy's sleeve.
"Not like that, Lex," daddy admonished her and gently loosened her grip. "What do you say, should I take you upstairs then?"
"I want Mr. Snuggles with me." Lexie pointed at the corner of the couch, where her purple rabbit sat, looking slightly squashed. "He's also turning six," she told her parents seriously. "So we have to celebrate him too."
"Of course," mommy said, smiling reassuringly at her. She handed Lexie the rabbit. "Can you carry him? I think he'll feel safer with you than with me. I always threaten him with a bath." She scrunched her face and Lexie giggled. She took the rabbit in one hand and grabbed daddy's with her other as they made their way upstairs.
Crawling up in her bed, she pushed all her soft animals aside and patted on the left side of it.
"One chapter?" she asked hopefully. Daddy sighed dramatically, but twinkled at her at the same time, so she knew he wouldn't say no. As he started to read the well-known words of Little Princess, she rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. He smelled safe. The scent of that water from the glass flask he used to pour every morning had mixed with something else this night, something that smelled stronger and his blue shirt was smoky.
"'And at last they found Emily', he read, "'but they went to a number of toy-shops and looked at a great many dolls before they finally discovered her'... Lexie?" She felt that he shifted the mattress when he rose from the bed and carefully slid the covers over her.
"Read more," she mumbled sleepily.
"I think that's enough for tonight," daddy said, smiling down at her. "We'll finish the chapter tomorrow."
"Daddy? How could Sara know her doll was called Emily before she found her?"
"I don't know, sweetie," daddy mused. "I never thought of that. What do you think?"
"I think she just knew," Lexie decided. "I think she knew she would find her somewhere."
She heard the stairs creak when he went downstairs. She imagined what he would do the rest of the night. He would probably go out in the kitchen where mommy was doing the dishes from the dinner. She had meant to do them when they had eaten, but then Molly had tripped and scraped her knees and after that, they had ended up playing Candy Land four times in a row before it was time for bed.
She guessed daddy would sit down in the couch and catch up on the newspaper that he usually read when he got home from the job even if she and Molly took turns getting it from the mailbox every day before they had their cereal. She'd asked him once why they had to get it when neither he nor mommy ever read it until later. He had twinkled at her and told her that the mailman needed the space when he delivered letters later in the day.
Maybe he would have the T.V. on in the background while he read. He would mutter to himself when he had to change the channel from the cartoons she and Molly had been watching to the adult channels with the news and the scary pictures of car wrecks and burning buildings, or boring ones of men in costumes saying important stuff. She'd bet her mommy wanted to see that show they used to watch Friday nights, the one with that grey-haired mister who decided all about the oil and the pretty ladies that used to drink from wine bottles when they thought no one watched them.
She wondered how early they would come in tomorrow. Molly was born in March, just three days after mommy's birthday, and when she had turned four, Lexie had been very tired when mommy woke her up much earlier than usual. But it had been a Tuesday and she knew daddy didn't want her and Molly be late for school. She liked that she would be six on a Saturday because that meant she could have her party on her actual birthday. She had invited all of the girls in her class. Daddy had pretended to be horrified at first when mommy told him, but they weren't really that many girls in her year. And she already knew Rachel wouldn't come, because she had thrown up twice yesterday, first after lunch and then just before recess. So they were going to be nine if she didn't count Molly, which she didn't even if mommy had said she had to be at the party too. She had already chosen her dress. It was purple with tiny white flowers and she would have white pantyhose and black shiny shoes. She would be pretty if the morning just would come...
When she woke, it was to the sound of clattering glasses and hushed voices somewhere pretty close to her door. She yawned and tried to find a reason to why there would be glasses upstairs. They never ate breakfast somewhere else than in the kitchen, not even on weekends. Mommy didn't like her and Molly to eat in front of the T.V. and the only times she would allow it were if they were sick. She was pretty sure she wasn't sick, so unless Molly were she couldn't figure out the glass thing.
When the doorknob slowly was pressed downwards, she suddenly remembered all about what day today was and she crawled deeper under her covers and concentrated on lying absolutely still. It felt like small bubbles were simmering in her stomach. She imagined it to look like the water did in the pot when mommy cooked spaghetti and she did her best not to open her eyes until the song had quieted and she could act surprised.
"Congratulations, sweetie," mommy said and kissed her cheek. "Have you been waiting for us?"
"I'm sure she slept well until we barged in here," daddy added in a tone that was so serious that Lexie knew he was only kidding with her.
Molly crawled up in her bed and stared at her with wide eyes.
"Mommy said you could open my present first." She took the little box mommy held out for her and shoved it at Lexie. "I'm not supposed to say that it's a..."
"Molly!" both mommy and daddy warned and Molly pouted angrily at them. Lexie giggled and tried to open the present quickly before Molly would say something else. She smiled when she saw the silver necklace on the little pink cotton bed.
"Mommy buyed it but I chosed it," Molly announced and pointed at the little ballet shoe dangling in the chain while mommy helped her put it around her neck. "'Cause you go to dance class. Can I have my chocolate now?"
Lexie laughed and gave her one of the little pieces of chocolate mommy always put for both of them on the birthday tray. Mommy had told her that was because she used to be mad when she didn't get any present on Molly's birthdays when she was little. Busy unpacking her other presents, which consisted of three new books, a light blue hoodie and a pink freestyle with small earphones, she hadn't noticed that daddy had disappeared. She gasped in surprise when he came into her room again, leading a shining red bike.
"Is that for me?" she breathed.
"Do you see another six year old in here?" daddy teased her. "It's yours, Lex. As soon as you've dressed, we can go outside and give it a ride."
"After you've eaten your breakfast, that is," mommy corrected.
Lexie rolled her eyes, but thirty minutes later, she was standing on the driveway in a green t-shirt and knee-length shorts mommy had bought for her on their summer vacation in Olympic National Park. Mommy had insisted she should put pads on her knees and elbows, but when she had gone to check on Molly who had started to cry in the kitchen, Lexie got tired of waiting for her to help her.
"Are you ready, honey?" daddy asked her when he halted the bike in front of her and turned down the kickstand.
Lexie bit her lip. Suddenly, the big girls' bike looked so... big. She used to ride around the backyard with the white and blue bike she'd gotten from her cousin Glenda when she'd grown out of it, pretending that it was a horse and playing stable-girl with Molly and her trike. But on Glenda's bike, daddy had fastened training wheels and she had only once fallen off, when she was riding downhill on that little grassy slope below the porch and didn't take it easy as daddy had told her. And even then, she hadn't hurt, only gotten wet, because even if the grass was dewy from that morning's rain it had been soft and forgiving.
Where daddy was standing now, however, was not a soft grass spot, but hard and nasty concrete. And this time, he hadn't fastened any training wheels. She looked hesitantly at him. He had been a really good daddy to get her a new bike, and he was looking so excited for her to try it. She absolutely didn't want to disappoint him. She took a reluctant step towards him and he held out her crash helmet for her. It was also new, red and shiny like the bike itself, and with two butterfly stickers on the front.
"I'm holding on to you," daddy promised while he helped her fasten the helmet, as if her uncertainty could be seen on the outside.
She often wondered over that. Both mommy and daddy often asked her if she was happy, or afraid, or sad even before she had said anything to them. Often, they could also guess what was bothering her, like if Nina and Kaylie had gone home from school together without asking her to come, or like that time David had told her he was moving to Portland and that they wouldn't go to the same school anymore. She didn't understand that. She could sometimes feel if mommy seemed sad or happier than usual, but she could never ever guess why, except for that time daddy had told her mommy's grandma had died.
"Lex?" Daddy held out his hand. "Come on. I'll hold on tight."
Her hands were suddenly sweaty. She swallowed nervously but nodded cautiously and climbed the saddle while daddy held the bike steady. It was high and a little scary, but she couldn't help but laugh once she was up.
"Start pedaling when you feel ready, Lex," daddy instructed from behind.
Lexie cast a glance over her shoulder. Her daddy was strong. He wouldn't let go. And she could just think of it as the old bike and pretend she could do this. She closed her eyes briefly, then took a deep breath and started pedaling. Once she had pressed down the pedals, it came automatically and she enjoyed using her legs to get further.
Round and round they went. Daddy had chosen the tucked away little spot between the park and their neighborhood and there were no cars disturbing their practice. Lexie knew some kids that used to go here and play. She and Molly had done it a couple of times too when daddy had the time to come with them. But no one was here now even if the day was warm and everybody was free from school. She wished mommy could see her, but she knew she was inside with Molly. When she could ride the bike all by herself, she would take her out to show her. Maybe daddy would teach her how to do it on her own next time they tried it. She cast another glance over her shoulder to maybe ask him but when she caught sight of him, her pulse started to race. Daddy was panting behind her, but he was nowhere as close to be able to hold onto the bike. Which meant she was doing this on her own already.
She felt her palms go all sweaty again. She couldn't do this by herself, she hadn't practiced on keeping balance without someone steadying her. Biting her lip, she concentrated on just pedaling like she'd done the last minutes. But it wasn't long until the straight ended and she had to turn. Slowly she steered the handlebars to the left, as daddy had instructed her, and she felt the wheels lean that way too.
"You're doing fine, Lex!"
And in the next moment, all she knew was hard concrete and stinging pain in her knees and on one elbow and the taste of blood in her mouth. She heard daddy's hastening steps on the ground and tried to take some deep breaths to prevent the tears that threatened to choke her anytime now. She really didn't want to cry, not on her birthday, not in front of daddy who would be so sad because it was his idea to try the bike, and not for such a stupid thing as just falling and scraping your knees. Molly had cried yesterday, but Molly was still little.
"Are you okay, honey?"
Daddy's voice was concerned and that made her even more determined not to worry him even more by crying. She tried to swallow a sob while she thought of an answer to that. The feelings of pride of having actually ridden the bike by herself were so mixed up with those of anger and confusion to why daddy just had let go without saying anything that she just didn't want to think of it at all. What a crappy birthday this seemed to turn out to be.
When daddy reached her where she was lying on the ground, he lifted the bike off her and tenderly helped her sit up and inspected her knees. The sight of the blood and the ugly scratches made Lexie feel a little sick and she couldn't help that a sob escaped her. Daddy had laid the bike down on the grass and she didn't want to think of the fact that it had been lying on top of her. Even if its weight hadn't exactly hurt her, at least not more than what her knees had, she could still feel the cold metal against her bare shins and she shuddered. She hoped it wasn't broken.
"Let's go inside, Lex," daddy suggested. "Mommy will fix you all up with band-aids, okay?"
When she reluctantly nodded, he scooped her up in his arms. As they walked away from the bike, Lexie saw the long flag daddy had attached to its rack wave sadly in the mild breeze and she burst out in tears, burying her head against daddy's shoulder. As he carried her through the well-known streets, she saw the neighbors cast them glances. Some of them greeted or nodded at daddy. Mrs. Cooper raised her hand at them where she was hanging her laundry in her garden and the Johnson twins that Lexie almost never played with because they were four years older than her stared curiously when they walked by.
"How did it go?" Lexie heard mommy call from the kitchen as daddy pushed the door open and carried her inside. "Oh, honey," she said sympathetically when she got out in the hall, the smile on her face fading. She wiped her hands on her apron and met daddy's eyes.
"Daddy let go," Lexie whimpered.
"Put her down on the couch, Thatch," mommy sighed. "I'll go get the band-aids." Lexie screwed up her eyes when she returned and started to swab her knees with something that stung and that Lexie knew was called antiseptic. She couldn't help but wriggle, but mommy's hand held her steady. "I take it neither of you thought of the knee pads I suggested," she said a little sourly.
Lexie cast her a quick glance to see if she was really mad. "Not the elbow pads either," she whispered when it didn't look like it. She held up her elbow and mommy made a face at the gravel that had stuck to the gore.
As soon as mommy made her bend her arm to clean the wound, it hurt so much she couldn't help but cry a little again. Daddy uncomfortable changed feet where he was standing in the middle of the living room and he was looking uncertainly at them a little while before he cleared his throat.
"Em... I... I'll go out and get the bike. We wouldn't want it to get taken, I mean. It looks like you're... that you can handle that just fine, so... I'll just... " He nodded repeatedly and mommy shot him an impatient look. "I'll go do that, then," he concluded and retreated.
"How's that?" mommy asked when she'd wrapped up the last piece of band-aid on Lexie's left knee. She sat down beside her on the couch and dabbed her cheeks with a fresh paper tissue. "Blow your nose." Lexie blew and rubbed the last tears from her eyes with her fists.
"Thanks," she mumbled and sniffled a little.
"Now I have two girls with scraped knees and band-aids," mommy said and smiled a little. "It will make me look like a good mom at the party tonight, huh? It's lucky you're gonna have clothes that cover it up."
Lexie hadn't thought about that at all, but she gave mommy a slight smile and inspected her knees once more.
"Come on," mommy said and stood up. "I think you need some milk and cookies to stop thinking about this, am I right? You can even taste some of the cake I'm baking for later."
Lexie's head shot up and she nodded eagerly. Mommy's homemade cookies always cheered her up. Daddy used to say that mommy should have some ready for every car trip they took, in case she and Molly started to fight or get cranky. As she bit into the still oven-hot cookie mommy offered her from the baking sheet, she thought of the party. She had helped mommy write the cards for the table place cards and decorated them with pink and purple glitter. Slowly licking the crusty layers for the rich taste of the sweet cream between, she nodded happily. This would be a good birthday after all.