Lies

Jess knocked softly on his daughter's bedroom door as he checked the doorknob, locked.

"Yes," answered a muffled voice.

"Amber, open the door." It wasn't a mean, gruff command. It was a simple request.

"Are you going to yell at me for being mean to Mom?" she asked, her voice clearer as though she was standing directly on the other side of the door.

"No."

Jess heard the locked click and the door opened a crack to reveal Amber, eyes red and puffy.

"I didn't know you were the one that got insulted," said Jess with a sad half-grin.

"Did you see her face?" asked Amber with a bit of horror, ignoring her father's ill-placed jest.

Jess lost the grin and nodded morosely.

Amber sniffed and looked her father in the eye, "I don't know why I said it. It just slipped out. I can't explain it…"

"Hey, I of all people know what it is like to say stupid things with out thinking."

Amber let out an airy, half-hearted chuckle.

"Can you tell her I'm sorry?" asked Amber desperately.

Jess put his hands up defensively. "I can't do anything for you, Am. This is between you and your mom; you have to work it out with her. Apologies and why you are mad at her."

"I'm not mad at her!" insisted Amber in a quick and surprised retort.

"Amber," said Jess with a look that told her he knew what he was talking about and she didn't. "You attacked Rory for leaving us," explained Jess then added speedily when Amber opened her mouth to say something. "Though with out thinking about it or planning it. Subconsciously, you wanted to hurt her because you were angry with her. Whether it was because she left you when you were born or something else I don't know, but it is not my fight."

"Can't you tell her sort of preemptively?" asked Amber with a last bit of desperation.

"It won't mean anything coming from me…night." And with that, Jess left his daughter standing their in her own thoughts.

Rory wasn't out of the shower yet when Jess entered their bedroom so he got dressed and got in bed. She came in a few minutes later, in baggy pj's, hair damp and laid down in bed next to her husband, back to him as though she could dare not look him in the eye.

"You know she is sorry, right?" whispered Jess after a few moments of silence.

"It doesn't stop the hurt," she replied hoarsely. Jess strongly suspected Rory had cried in the shower.

…

The next morning Amber entered the kitchen to find her mother sitting their alone with a coffee cup in one hand a newspaper in the other just a little too silently.

"Breakfast?" asked Rory sounding like she had a sore throat.

"I'll get it," Amber replied wearily.

Rory's nod was her only reply. She wasn't intentionally snubbing or ignoring her daughter out of contempt or scorn.

"I gotta get to school," commented Amber a few moments later, getting up from the table.

Rory nodded again. Amber paused in the kitchen doorway, turned round suddenly, and opened her mouth to say she was sorry, she hadn't meant anything by it, that she wasn't still mad at her for leaving, but she remained silent. Rory hadn't notice Amber and was still reading her paper. Amber shut her mouth and proceeded out the front door.

It seemed to her that the more she thought about telling her mother such things about not being angry with her, the more she realized it would be a lie.

Next chapter- Entitled "Daughters and Mothers and Grandmothers slash Great Aunts" …it just slides of the tongue doesn't it?