"Emma, I beg you, stop punishing my fryer. Whatever outrage you may think it inflicted you, I'm sure it doesn't deserve that kind of torture."
I raise my eyes from my work in progress to see a crossed-armed Regina frowning at me from the kitchen threshold. She has changed into her pyjamas and removed her makeup. I think she's quite pretty like this. More than usual, I mean.
"Hey! I'm trying to fix it!" I huff indignantly to get some locks of hair out of my face. Regina simply raises an eyebrow and manages to look really, really skeptical.
"I don't know about your intentions, but if I am to rely on your precedent attempts at basic repairing, I'm saying this is it for Mrs. Hottie."
"Mrs. Hottie? You name your home appliances?"
"I was a fancy of Henry's." She approaches me and eyes the current mess of plastic and metal over her shoulder. "When he was 6, he seemed to think that any electric equipment was a sentient being. You should have seen him thanking the microwave before retrieving his food from it."
"Really? That's very considerate of him." I forget to mess up with the fryer for a second while I picture the scene in my head.
"He grew tired of it rather soon, though. But I enjoyed mortifying him by using the names he had come up with, so some of them finally stuck."
A loud crack arising from the dismembered wreck in my hands startles us.
"Damn it!" I cry.
"It's all right, Emma. Just let it be."
"No! I will fix Mrs. Hottie even if it is the last thing I do!" I point the screwdriver at Regina, daring her to contradict me.
"Then I surely hope that this is actually the last time you try to fix anything in this house." She says, making her way towards the door. "What was wrong with it in the first place, anyway?"
"The warning light wouldn't work." I inform, though she totally should be aware by now, being the diligent woman she is and all. "It has been like this for ages and no one except me seemed to care at all about it. How are you supposed to know when the frying is done?" She doesn't seem to be gathering the relevance of the matter. "I just had to fix it." I declare.
"Of course you had." She sighs. "But let me tell you something: everyone would be better off if you restricted your repairing skills to the equipment in your apartment. That way, you would still be able to work your frustration issues with this awkward therapy of yours while still preserving the appliances in this house, so I could carry on feeding the three of us." She clasps her hands neatly in front of her and bows her head towards me, as if she was talking to somebody particularly dense. "As for now, you may want to consider joining us to watch the painfully absurd fiction that our son has surely decided to grace us with. That is, if you manage to extract yourself from the devilish device that seems to have aggravated you so." She spins on her heels, head upright, ever the embodied elegance, and leaves the kitchen with her gown floating behind her.
I look hopelessly at the corpse of the fryer for a few moments before deciding to give up and placing it in the box I have to carry to the dump, alongside the beater and the sandwich maker.
Rest in peace, Mrs. Hottie.
I untie my hair and massage my scalp in my way to the living room, then take a messy lock from my eyes to better appreciate the sight in front of me.
Henry and Regina are standing side by side, faces hyper concentrated, legs slightly ajar and arms describing perfectly synchronized movements. Both of them are barefoot. This is the detail that overloads me with cuteness. I'm sure the smile in my face is pretty dumb right now.
"Hey, Ma! Check this out." Henry addresses me without shifting his position. "I'm teaching Mom some tai chi." Regina's lips quiver a little in the corners and her eyes shift briefly to meet mine, but she continues imitating Henry's movements. "She's pretty good at it." Henry compliments.
It figures. They're offering a very nice performance of "Parting the Wild Horse's Mane".
"Hum… very impressive, kid." I say. Regina shouldn't be lifting her left arm so high, though, so I tell her and mend her position with a light touch. Very well, now that's a perfect move. Very beautiful, indeed. And quite hypnotic. I'm slightly disappointed when they stop and suggest starting watching the film. Henry has picked another X-Men movie. I think this is the one with Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique.
I check the time in my cell phone and hesitate before opting for shutting up and joining them in the sofa. I lean back in the corner so I can steal occasional glances at them, just for the sake of delighting myself in how amazingly at ease they look. By the time Magneto is barricading the White House with the Kennedy Memorial Stadium I'm feeling rather relaxed too. Of course, that's the moment my cell phone starts to vibrate annoyingly. I jump from the sofa and exit the room to take the call.
Back to the living room, I shift my weight from foot to foot uncomfortably and begin: "Er… guys… I'm sorry but I can't stay 'til the end…"
Henry and Regina look backwards from the sofa. "What's up?" Henry asks, pulsing the pause button.
"I had just… agreed on going somewhere tonight. And I just… received the call, so…"
"Oh, you mean with Killian?" Henry says, looking so very not understanding at all. "Why didn't you say anything during dinner? We could've changed the day for the movie."
Regina has simply turned again to face the TV, but from here I can see that her expression has hardened. I can't tell what she's thinking, which is weird and probably a bad sign. I can't remember now why I haven't told them about this before. This was the exact situation I wanted to avoid.
"I'm sorry, kid. You're right. I just forgot." I look sympathetically at him. I really hate disappointing him. "You're not mad, right? You're still up for tomorrow?"
"Of course, Ma." He says, but I'm painfully aware that he isn't smiling. "Have fun. See you tomorrow." He loosens his arm, so I approach and hug him good bye. I guess he isn't very pissed off, then.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow." I say back, and I'm totally implying that I hope to see Regina tomorrow too, but she looks overly interested in the frozen image of Magneto and somehow I don't dare to speak directly at her right now.
I walk towards the entrance and feel conscious of how the warmth abandons my body while I open the door and cold gust of wind receives me.