3. Annabel.
A note on Lena's daughter. And maybe, maybe she'll meet someone familiar when she last expects it...
"Catch up, or let me win another time!" Her hair is golden brown in the gentle soft light of the dusk. My daughter.
The world will never be the same, once you become a mother. That's when you start caring only about your child. Thinking from the point of making her happy. Safe. Successful. Strong. That's when everything else steps aside and becomes blurred, leaving only your family in focus.
Julian. Grace. Hana. They are my family. But one person that I worry about the most (maybe just a little more, than about Julian) is Annabel. My little daughter.
However, she is not that little. Today she turns sixteen. Annabel is growing up, and no matter how much I want her to remain childish and small, I feel incredibly proud. Proud of the young woman that my baby became.
She's got Julian's eyes. Blue, as the sunlit sea. Dreamy, as the sky. Piercing and deep.
She is rather tall. She is skinny. Graceful and subtle. Not at all like me.
She is beautiful.
She resembles Julian a lot. They've got so much in common. But I'm never jealous. I'm happy. Now I have even more of the man I love.
But still, she has my smile. She loves running. She is brave. She has always been a tomboy - she'd rather play football with Jenny and boys next door than spend time dying of boredom with other girls. She is very kind. And she loves her family.
Sometimes I think, however, that she is not like me. She is much more like Annabel - my mother.
"No way!" I laugh and sprint in her direction. She is running effortlessly, almost flying. It won't be easy to overtake her.
"Lena!"
On my left I spot a golden flash and the next second Hana joins me, a smile shining on her face. She is beautiful as before.
We run joyfully together. It's not a competition now, the goal is to arrive home at the same time.
We slam our hands at the front door of my house, laughing and shouting "Halena!". Annabel, however, has told us several times that we should include her name too. We didn't. It's just mine and Hana's thing.
Julian opens the door for us.
"You could have just knocked politely", he's smiling. Julian hugs Hana and Annabel and gives me a gentle kiss.
"That's not what you should expect from an Invalid and her daughter", I stick my tongue out to him.
Twenty years have passed but we still joke around about it. It doesn't hurt now, when everything's over.
"Well, I guess I could expect that from Hana", he parries, still smiling.
The house is in decorations. Colorful ribbons and fresh flowers. Balloons pop out from nowhere, some of them snap and cause Hana to start and let out short shrieks. She's terrified of balloons.
Annabel hops around the dining room babbling joyfully on the phone. Julian had gone somewhere to fetch the remaining invitations for today's party.
I take a minute to remember my life after Annabel's birth. It was messy and new and scary at first, but became a literal nightmare ever since she learned how to walk. We even lost her for longer than two days when she was three years old. Turned out she was camping in the woods. I remember I went insane with worry. No doubt she was giving us a hard time, not only as a child. Once in school she got suspended for throwing a banana fight in the middle of a classroom. And a few years after it Julian had to come over to settle the things with a couple of parents whose children Annabel had forced into making a blood pact. Well, she is a hell of a child.
Closer to night guests start to gather. There is a couple of chatty girls from Annabel's class, who brought her enormous flower bouquets. Also some boys who throw adoring glances in her direction. And of course, her three absolute best friends: Elsa, a young painter, gentle and reasonable, who usually settles Annabel's crazy mood swings during which she can equally badly want to fly to the moon and feed Gracie's baby boy to ducks in the pond; James, with whom she hanged out since she was able to form her thoughts into words; and Celesta... Maybe I'll tell you about her later.
Annabel doesn't show up when all the guest have already come, so I leave to look for her. I find my daughter outside the house in the shadow of an old maple. First I thought she was alone, but then I spot him. Hair as a crown of autumn leaves. No wonder I didn't see him between the tree's branches.
The sight of him snatches my breath away. Alex left about a year before Annabel was born, and never showed up. I am startled, but then the second realization dawns on me.
That's not Alex.
That's a younger version of him. An absolute copy. But that's not Alex. That's his son.
I watch curiously how Annabel and the boy talk in low voices. I see them embrace each other and kiss tenderly. When the boy disappears in twilight, I approach my daughter. She is smiling. The deliria got her, just as it got me.
"His name is Lenny, you know" she tells me. "He never forgot".
I'm overwhelmed. Alex. She means Alex.
He never forgot me.
And... Well, maybe it's too soon to say, but maybe...
Maybe if not me then my daughter will get to have the name Sheathes.
I know I haven't updated for years and I have no excuse (school... maybe just school). But I am still looking forward to finishing this collection of one-shots. Next chapter is about Raven and contains spoilers for short story "Raven".
