- Of Dinners and Disasters -
"No one keeps a secret so well as a child." –Victor Hugo
[Tuesday, October 15, 2019]
A little after seven, with Chris and Lea in the middle of a heated debate about who really owned Boardwalk and Park Place, they heard a car pull up outside. Katie had fallen asleep in the armchair, legs tucked to her chest. Without the control she maintained in her waking state, levitation brought her floating a couple inches above the fabric. Every once in a while, Chris threw a glance in her direction to make sure she didn't stray too far from her seat. A part of him wondered what worried him—even if she fell and missed the chair, the sensation altogether would pass right through her. Nevertheless, as the older cousin it was his job to worry about her. When the door opened in the foyer, the seven-year-old's eyes blinked open. She raised her head while her body, with precise control, returned itself to the armchair.
"We're back!" Phoebe called into the house. The door shut with a bang. Using her mother's gallant entrance as a distraction, Lea snatched the two properties out of Chris's reach.
"Mommy?" Katie said blearily. Her call was followed by the clackety-clack of high-heeled footsteps entering the living room. Each sister's arms were laden with packages, Phoebe's with slightly bulkier ones than the others.
She was the first to free her hands, setting both bags down on the coffee table. Smiling at Katie and then at Lea, who didn't look up from the game board, she asked, "Hey, girls, did you have fun with your cousins?"
Katie nodded, rubbing dreams from her eyes. "Are we going home?" she asked.
"Yeah, babe. In a few minutes. You'd better get your coat on. Do you need to use the bathroom?"
Katie answered her mother's queries with quiet obedience, and then hopped off the armchair to carry out her instructions. Lea, from her stubbornly kept seat on the floor, finally did look up, but only to argue that they couldn't leave yet without letting her finish winning the game. While Phoebe tried to cajole her older daughter into motion, Piper handed her single package to Paige, who orbed it upstairs. Piper approached her son, who was busy collecting property cards from across the board.
"Was everything quiet?"
"No demons," he replied. He scooped the pieces off the Monopoly board and started to organize the money, separating it by color. Finally noticing her cousin's traitorous cleanup, Lea paused her fight just long enough to snap that he "leave it!" before returning to her debate. Chris kept separating.
"Did everyone eat?" Piper continued.
Chris almost laughed; his mom was so predictable. Matriarch of the family and determined to fulfill her duty. "Yeah, Mom, we ate. I heated up some leftover pizza from the freezer."
At the word 'pizza,' Piper wrinkled her nose, unhappy with what Chris apparently considered appropriate as a dinner. Who had even dared to put pizza in her freezer? But then, deciding to let go what had already happened anyway, she gave a reluctant, "Fine. So everyone had some, then?" She resolved to check the fridge later and discard any more such offensive foods.
Folding the board into the box, Chris gave a nod and stood, the game tucked under his arm. Yes, everyone had eaten. Except Wyatt, whom Chris hadn't dared approach again, not with that feral snarl still trembling within his ribcage. No, if Wyatt were hungry—well, he knew how to work the microwave himself. He trotted toward the stairs, sighing when his mom trailed after him. Clearly her interrogation hadn't ended.
When he paused on the steps, expectant, Piper pressed, "Your sister, too? She should eat something. Did she eat something?"
"What? Oh, whoops." Prue had not been the sibling his guilty conscience had in mind; in fact, she hadn't been on his radar at all. Her room had remained surprisingly quiet the past few hours, so much so that Chris forgot she was up there (and secretly wondered if she actually was). "No, sorry. She was in her room the whole time. Probably sleeping or something. I'll tell her to come down for—"
"No, no," Piper assured, "I'll bring something up."
To himself the boy muttered, Prue's fine, there's nothing wrong with her; but after his mom's dressing-down that morning he didn't dare voice the opinion. Instead, continuing up the stairs, he mumbled a half-hearted, "Sounds good." He took the remaining stairs two at a time.
Both Wyatt and Prue's doors were closed. A quick check with his sensing powers determined that Prue was, in fact, asleep in her room. Well, what d'you know. By the time he replaced Monopoly in the game closet and skidded back downstairs, Paige had already left and Phoebe, Lea, and Katie were at the door, Lea looking particularly grumpy. There was time for only a cheerful, "See you in a week, Katie. Bye, Melon," before Phoebe ushered them outside. Afterwards, Chris whined a bit about having 'no one to play with,' but when it became obvious Piper was ignoring him, he wandered up to his room and reluctantly tackled his homework. It was as close to a quiet evening as the Halliwell Manor ever saw.
Prue spent the next day at home, to her feeble protest. Other than that, she seemed to exhibit no lasting effects so that, at least by Thursday, she was allowed to return to school. She looked well enough that Piper stopped eyeing her each time she walked into a room, and even let her spend Sunday morning with Lori and Michelle at the mall (though she called every hour to check in). Despite her distinct cheerfulness, Prue had still said nothing to hint to what she had dreamt, but as the week progressed Piper stopped pressing her for information, deciding to let things lie. At least for the time being.
Five days from the last visit, that Sunday, the clan was together again, this time with a few more additions. five-year-old Bobby, bored of the grown-up conversation in the living room, dragged his cousins Lea and Katie out to the front yard to begin a game of tag. When Lori's mom dropped Prue off from the mall a few minutes later, the only indication that she had been ill was Lea's casual, "Feeling better?" before she, too, was roped into the game.
Inside, the adults chatted in the living room while Piper finished her preparations in the kitchen. A few minutes passed in cozy small-talk until Piper's authoritative voice echoed, "Dinner in five minutes!" an announcement that changed little. Phoebe merely resettled herself on the couch; she rested back against her husband's shoulder. In the same fluid motion, he leaned forward to press a kiss to the crown of her head. Across from them, in an armchair, Paige threw a casual hand over her abdomen. Henry Mitchell, her husband of fourteen years, sat in the second chair a couple feet from hers. Both had come straight from work, Henry making a quick stop to pick up their son from Kindergarten. In their rush, neither had changed. Paige was dressed now in a rumpled set of teaching robes, which she wrinkled whenever shifting positions. Henry's lieutenant uniform was unbuttoned to reveal the sweat-stained t-shirt underneath it.
The first couple, on the other hand, had been given ample time to prepare for the evening. They had taken the day off the spend time with the birthday girl. Never one to disappoint, Coop had fulfilled Katie's birthday request—a trip to the circus—by whisking the three of them to Quebec City, where Cirque de Soleil put on a grand performance. Katie's eyes were riveted to the elegant and elaborate choreography of the sparkling acrobats; she loved everything about them, from their vibrant uniforms to their utter lack of fear while they danced, surrounded by emptiness—nothing to hold, to touch.
Afterwards, Phoebe and Coop surprised Katie with a visit to Niagara Falls. They stood beside the falls along the American border, water spraying their faces and drenching their shirts beneath the rain ponchos handed to them by a personal guide. Frail as she was, Katie managed only twenty minutes, even bundled in extra layers, before requesting a quiet place to sit down. Her eyes, wide with awe, lingered on the tremendous falls with longing, as her parents led her back up the wooden steps and onto drier lands. Once the roar of the downpour had faded to a distant throbbing, Phoebe deemed it time to eat.
They had lunch and dessert at a quaint little restaurant in Little Italy, Montréal—Il Mulino, which, Coop announced with authority, served the most authentic Italian delicacies on their side of the Atlantic Ocean. Then Katie happily spent the next couple of hours shopping with her mom while Daddy got dragged along. Two new outfits and one butterfly necklace later, the trio returned home. There they pushed aside the living room rug and began a giggly game of Monopoly in the middle of the floor. As the faithful, adoring baby sister, Katie insisted they play Lea's favorite game, even if the older girl was not there to join. Although much of the game went a bit over the almost-eight-year-old's head, she dutifully played—and enjoyed—well into bankruptcy. That still left time for a bath and a much-needed nap. Phoebe even managed to sit down and answer another couple of letters for the coming week's column while Coop checked up on one of his older couples, now newlyweds.
"Sounds like a great day for everyone," Paige remarked as Phoebe finished relaying the finer details of their trip. Henry nodded in agreement.
"More like exhausting," Phoebe mused, sitting back against her husband's shoulder. "Katie's lucky she got the chance to nap before we came." Coop grunted in agreement, although he couldn't quite arrange his face into a sympathetic enough expression to cover the glow he always came back with after visiting a successful client. Phoebe learned to forgive him for that; how could she take offense at home much he loved love?
"What I want to know," Henry said, "is how both of you got out of work for an entire day. I can't get those kinds of freebies at the station, and Paige's vacation days are determined by the family emergencies." He grimaced plainly. "By the end of the year there aren't any left over."
Laughing, Phoebe responded, "I work out my own schedule. As long as I get my column in on time, Oscar doesn't care when I do it. Calling in sick is really just a formality."
"I got a colleague to cover for me," Coop added. "He understood. When we say, 'Nothing is greater than love,' that includes all forms." When he tightened his arms around his wife's waist, instinct had her leaning toward the touch.
"Dinner!" Piper yelled from the kitchen. A moment later she appeared in the threshold, wiping her hands on a clean dishtowel. "Everyone up," she instructed, noting with annoyance their lack of reaction to her initial call. Paige uncurled her feet from where she had tucked them beneath her hips and took her time slipping them back into the shoes she had discarded on the floor soon after their arrival. Henry groaned as he shifted, and Phoebe and Coop didn't bother moving at all, though Phoebe did pitch herself forward as if she might eventually attempt to get up.
One would assume, Piper thought as she folded her hands onto her hips, that they'd appreciate getting called in to eat.
"Coop," she sighed at length, giving up on the lot of them, "When you do get up, would you mind helping Leo round the kids up for supper?"
"Sure," he replied. Phoebe felt his torso tense behind her but didn't have time to process the implication before pinkish smoke billowed from behind her and he was gone. Without his support, she fell back against the sofa with an "Oof!" A cloud surrounded her face, forcing out a number of coughs before the fading fuscia cleared from her throat. It felt like swallowing an unexpected mouthful of heated cotton candy. With difficulty the irritated wife pushed herself back up, scowling at the imprint her husband had left behind.
"I hate when he does that," she grumbled. Both Piper and, unexpectedly, Henry 'hmphed' in understanding. Scoffing, Paige swatted her husband's chest, although his defiant gaze refused to recant the sentiment. While they bantered with one another, Phoebe, who without support behind her felt thoroughly uncomfortable, propelled herself upward and stood. "You need help setting the table?" she asked her older sister as she brushed her hands over a wrinkle in her white skirt. Piper's raised eyebrows and dry smile went unnoticed.
At length, choosing not to comment on the belatedness of a thoughtful offer, the eldest replied, "Nah. I had the boys do that before you came." When Phoebe offered a snort of disbelief as her only response, Piper admitted, "Well, I never said they did it willingly. I… persuaded them…" Sighing, she lamented, "I swear, the moment they even taste the idea of being a teenager…"
"Tell me about it," agreed Phoebe, whose own Lea neared thirteen herself. "I keep telling her she's still twelve, but she ignores me. It's like talking to a brick wall." They headed toward the dining room, Paige hopping up to follow and Henry eventually grunting himself into motion as well. As they left the room, the youngest sister silently thanked the Powers that Be that Bobby was still a far cry from the stage her sisters so artfully described.
It took close to twenty minutes for Leo and Coop to round up the four hiding children and when they trooped back into the house with Lea, Prue, Katie, and Bobby in tow, they looked thoroughly disheveled. The glow of Coop's previous elation had definitely dulled. Although she did let slip a laugh at their amusing appearance, Piper managed to stifle a comment, though the situation tempted her sorely. To overcome the lure, she busied herself—calling down the boys; instructing the others to wash up before even thinking of sitting down at her table; and demanding that Paige take off that ridiculous robe for dinner. There was a bustle from all directions and within a matter of minutes nine seats found themselves occupied. From the kitchen Piper waited until the sound of scraping chairs had ceased. After all these years she knew better than to bring out food while people still scrambled about in the dining room. When all was quiet, save the chatter of eager voices, she tucked her mitten-clad hands into the oven to retrieve Katie's favorite dish. Balancing a serving spoon on top, she carried it in to the family.
"Baked ziti for the birthday girl," she announced as she set in front of her niece a tin pan rimmed with cheese-glued noodles and homemade tomato sauce. Katie clapped with delight.
"Thank you, Aunt Piper," she dutifully replied, before eagerly tilting her plate forward. Chuckling, Piper spooned a hefty portion onto her plate.
When all other plates had been filled, Piper sat down beside an empty chair and sectioned off a bit for herself. From the helping on her plate, she sliced off a corner with the side of her fork and, with a chef's critical eye, examined her creation. After a moment she allowed herself to taste a single sauce-drenched noodle, and only after determining that it was, in fact, up to par did she permit herself to eat. A couple of seconds later, Chris skidded into the room.
"Smells great," he approved loudly, collapsing onto the chair beside his scowling mother. "Pass me some. Please." He reached over Katie to drag the ziti closer, conspicuously overlooking the salad bowl next to his plate.
"I've been calling you for the past ten minutes. And where's your brother?" Piper's glower only deepened when her son carelessly and sloppily scraped a pile of noodles onto his plate.
Without looking up, and with only the briefest of hesitations, he intoned, "Finishing some English essay. He said he'll be down in a minute." Piper failed to notice the way Chris held his breath as he waited for her response, but Prue frowned with suspicion.
When Wyatt appeared some minutes later, Piper demanded, "What took you so long?"
Shrugging, eyes roaming the contents of the table, he muttered, "Had some calculus to finish up." Chris shot him a look, which then swiveled to his mother, but neither recipient noticed.
When her oldest child shuffled toward the closest vacancy, a seat at the head of the table, Piper stopped him with a, "No, don't sit there. That's for Grandpa."
Through a mouthful, Chris said, "Grandpa's coming?"
"Yes, Chris," Piper sighed, giving up on correcting his lack of etiquette, "your grandfather is coming. Which you would know if you bothered to listen to me once in a while."
With an amiable smile, Chris responded, "I do—it's just that 'once' happened not to be the 'while' that you mentioned Grandpa was coming for dinner."
"I thought Grandpa was in Singapore this week," Prue remarked from the other end of the table.
"This past week," Piper corrected. "He got home just a little while ago. Said he was coming straight from the airport. Did you take salad, Prue?" She passed the bowl across the table, where it passed hands from Henry, who paused to add some to Bobby's plate, to Paige to Lea to Prue, who very forcefully pushed the bowl away. Although she waited for reprimand, Piper had already refocused on Wyatt, who seated himself in the only remaining chair, between his uncle Henry and his father, at the head of the table.
"Is Grandpa bringing me a present?" Katie wondered. She was so excited at the prospect—a present from a whole 'nother country!—that she had let her control slip; her body levitated a few inches off the chair, making her look disproportionately tall.
"Katie!" Phoebe rebuked, shocked to hear from her younger child a comment that befitted her older one. Blushing a faint pink, Katie lowered her eyes and, reclaiming her powers, returned herself to a more appropriate height.
In a grunt, head ducked, Lea pointed out, "Nothing wrong with asking."
Katie glowed.
Clinking forks and loud chewing took up space in the air. Over the lull in talk, five-year-old Bobby announced, "I want pasta."
"Is that how we ask, Bobby?" Paige asked from his left, eyebrows raised with patient expectancy.
Bewildered, the boy repeated, "I want pasta… please?"
Wyatt gave a startled 'ha!', impressed with his littlest cousin's unintentional display of wit. Leo looked at him with raised eyebrows, an expression akin to Paige's, his laced not with the predicted disapproval but an unexpected surprise at an action he assumed below his son. Squirming, Wyatt ducked his head to avoid the stare. He could feel his dad's eyes watching the back of his head—even when he heard the 'clink, clink' that ensured his father had resumed eating.
Meanwhile, as Henry himself snorted into his string beans, Paige sighed and prompted, "Can I please…"
Bobby, fork fisted in his right hand, wondered why his mother insisted on withholding the pasta that was very much within her reach; and why she couldn't even recall the end of her own sentence. Still, she clearly would not pass the bowl until she had finished her thought, so with an inner sigh the boy reminded his mother, "'Can I please have some pasta.'"
She smiled, finally remembering, and said, "Very good, Bobby," to which the boy wanted to reply, "Better than you," but it seemed not the best thing to say because Mommy probably didn't like people pointing out that she often had trouble recalling the ends to her sentences (and most often, Bobby noticed, when speaking to him).
"Hey, Paige, how's that student of yours—the one you sent home last week?" Phoebe asked.
"Actually, he's back." Paige stabbed a piece of crunchy lettuce and nibbled off a piece at the edge before saying, "Yeah, I didn't expect it. I mean, you know me—I don't understand how anyone could hate magic when it's such a gift. But he seemed to really despise it. I didn't think he'd come around so soon."
From the end of the table, Leo, headmaster at Magic School and aware of all the students within its walls, supplied, "His father talked him into it. Said it was important to learn about his heritage."
Frowning, Phoebe said, "But… I thought he was, you know… mortal."
"Hey!" Henry protested. As a mortal, he fully supported Bobby learning magic—and resented any implication otherwise.
"Not you, sweetheart," Paige sighed in a patronizing tone, "You're special."
"Actually," Leo remarked, a mortal himself for many years, "some of our most supportive parents are mortals." Arms crossed and smirk in place, Henry sat back in his chair, entirely smug. "Uneducated witches who've had a bad experience or two with out-of-control powers," Leo continued, "often assume there's no alternative and shun the whole of magic."
"That's terrible," Phoebe lamented.
"That's dumb," Chris added helpfully.
"PASTA!" Bobby said loudly, making everyone jump. When he had everyone's eyes on him, he said much more calmly, "Please."
"Bobby, be patient," Paige admonished, "I'm getting you some." Bobby blinked at her, so she took his plate and started to spoon out from the bowl of un-marinated noodles. As she did so, she addressed her nephew, "It isn't dumb, they just don't know any better. They've been burned by the fire, so they assume that's all there is to it. They don't realize that the fire can also give them heat and light—if they learn not to stand too close."
"Hey," Wyatt protested, "don't get all 'Mrs. Mitchell' on us. We're not your students."
Making a face, she defended, "All I'm saying is that they think magic is dangerous. They don't realize that what's so dangerous about it is when it's not taught to be controlled, when it's ignored. That's when it goes wild."
Rolling his eyes at the lecture it took his aunt to come to the conclusion he had drawn in a single word, he remarked, "Like I said, it's dumb."
"They're not dumb, Chris," Piper reproached, and Paige dedicated a fervent, agreeing nod to the cause.
From beside her, Bobby sighed. The pasta had been forgotten—again—and now he couldn't even reach his plate. Mommy was getting more and more involved in whatever boring topic seemed to have all the grown-ups occupied. Scooting his chair back, Bobby slipped off his seat and ducked under the table. To his left were two jean-clad legs, one crossed over the other, barefoot with a pair of black shoes peeking out from somewhere under the chair. Beside them, Bobby inched toward the white-and-blue sneakers, one of which rapped against the floor, tapping out a rhythm. He poked his head out between that chair and the one beside it—also barefoot, but with no shoes in sight. His cousins Lea and Prue glanced down in surprise.
"Lea," he said, "Can I have pasta, please?"
Lea blinked for a moment and then laughed. "Sure," she answered and, to his relief, leaned over then and there to retrieve the pasta bowl.
Thanking her twice, he scurried back to his seat, set the bowl down in place of his own missing plate, and dug in.
"Bobby, what are you—? Where did you—?" While Lea and Prue exploded in peels of laughter, Paige snatched the bowl away from a disappointed Bobby, piled more onto the plate she had neglected, and set it in front of him. "There you go. You want ketchup with that? No? Good." She sighed as she replaced the bowl on the table. "Sometimes I don't know what to do with this kid."
Fork back in his fist and mouth bulging with noodles, Bobby mused, Sometimes I don't know what to do with this mommy. But she was good at bedtime stories, and she didn't get mad when he got dirty in the mud, and they got along well enough—so he supposed he would keep her, memory problems and all.
From the foyer, almost drowned out by the clamor, someone heard the doorbell ring and then, as though the person at the door knew the likelihood of that going unheard, incessant knocking.
Closest to the door, Prue flew off her seat to answer it. "It's Grandpa!" she announced for anyone who had not already determined that for herself, and then, "What are you wearing?" As she trotted back into the dining room, her grandfather followed behind her, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he went. There was a wrapped box tucked beneath one arm. On his head he wore, to Katie's immense amusement, a feathery mess of colors strung together by beaded strings that dangled down in his face. His smile widened when even Bobby's voice ceased, all heads turning toward him.
"Uh… Dad…?"
"Grandpa," Katie giggled, hands flying to her mouth as her eyes crinkled with mirth, "your hat's so hairy!" Chuckles erupted from the others around the table.
"It's not hair," Victor explained with a grin. "They're feathers. This, my dear, is a traditional Singaporean headdress." He stood at attention and then threw his youngest granddaughter a proud salute. She responded with another giggle.
Meanwhile, a thoroughly confused Bobby interjected, "But, Grammpa, how come in Singaporean they wear dresses on their heads?" Another round of amusement drowned out his confusion. He looked around, forehead wrinkled, but they only smiled at him, as if that explained everything.
Through her laughter, Paige attempted to clarify. "No, Bobby—it's called a headdress but—it's not actually a dress—well, see—that's just what the hat's—called."
The boy paused, thinking. At length he decided, "Well, that's a dumb name," effectively ending the conversation. The family's attention returned to Victor.
"Grandpa…"
"Yes, miss birthday girl? How can I be of service?"
Piper had abandoned her seat and was tugging her father's coat off his shoulders, slinging it over one arm as the other pulled out the chair for him to sit. She shook out the coat, folded it properly, and then held out a hand for his suit jacket, an offer he waved away.
A faint blush dusting her cheeks, Katie stammered, "Well… is that… who's that present for?"
Eyes twinkling, Victor replied with feigned ignorance, "What present? Ohhh, you mean this present?" At her eager nod, he shrugged, "That's nothing really. Just a little something I picked up for my dog."
Somewhat uncertain, Katie's expression fell. Her hands dropped off the table and scrunched beneath the tablecloth. After a moment, though, her face brightened again. "But you don't have a dog," she proclaimed, pleased with her detective work.
Victor gave himself a moment to think, hand dramatically stroking the day-old stubble that had prickled up during his plane ride. "Hmm… you're right. I guess I'll just have to give it to you, then." He stepped around Coop and Phoebe to place the box in front of Katie, beaming. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
Eyes riveted to the gift, she couldn't even force herself to look up when, in awe, she breathed, "Thank you." Her small hands inched toward the prize. Even the wrapping paper looked foreign, a popping green with brown monkey-looking, horned creatures dangling from nonexistent branches. Her very own present from a different country, a whole plane ride away. She'd never ridden on a plane before…
Smiling, Victor leaned forward to place a kiss on the crown of Katie's head. Mere inches away, he froze and drew back, remembering. She didn't notice the blunder, couldn't feel how close he'd come to her skin; she wouldn't even have known if he did end up kissing her—but he had forgotten. As he inconspicuously attempted to draw away, the people at the table averted their gazes, forcing conversation to resume in a decidedly awkward manner.
Piper, who had made a quick visit to the coat closet to deposit Victor's coat, returned at that moment. Having missed the brief embarrassment, she said only, "Dad, come sit down. What can I get you?"
"Uh…" He cleared his throat as if clearing away the scene. "Uh… how about some of that delicious-looking ziti?" As he moved back toward his seat, a hand caught his arm. He looked down and met Phoebe's eyes, narrowed in a smile. She squeezed an encouragement, wordlessly giving his mistake permission to pass, and then released him. Feeling only slightly mollified, he sat himself down at the head of the table.
The headdress he'd found amusing moments ago suddenly weighed more than felt comfortable. Until this very moment, he hadn't noticed the way the beads made his neck itch. Scratching at the offending spot, he removed the silly-looking object from his head and shoved it beneath his seat.
Someone had passed the pan of ziti, which awaited his disturbance. The smell of the melted cheese and peppery sauce was a stark contrast to the runny omelet and room temperature orange-juice-in-a-fruit-cup that he'd had for lunch on his nineteen-hour flight. His stomach growled, fully aware of which it favored. With a great deal of enthusiasm, he scooped a helping onto his eager plate.
"Careful, Gramps," Chris remarked, "that's Katie's favorite. Don't wanna finish the birthday girl's favorite, do you?"
Said birthday girl, however, seemed to have forgotten the meal altogether. While she stared mournfully at her gift, now in Phoebe's hands, her mother, in an undertone so as not to disturb the rest of the group, determined it inappropriate for the table.
"Wait until dinner's over," she patiently explained. "We don't open presents during the meal. Right?"
Watching her precious gift disappear beneath her mother's seat, Katie glumly agreed, "Right." She stared after it a moment longer, but the only bit she could see past her mom's skirt was a green corner that stuck out behind the chair. Although she returned her attention to her plate, the baked ziti she had anticipated for over a week just didn't taste as good anymore.
As the meal progressed, the discussion took various turns. At one point, though no one was entirely certain how it happened, Piper and Henry found themselves leaning over either side of Wyatt in a heated debate over the best way to catch an un-catchable criminal.
"Lay a trap?" Henry snorted, "How dumb do you think this guy is? He's been eluding us for three months already. You think he'll just show up if we put a carrot under a cardboard box with a stick?"
"Not catching him doesn't prove the intelligence of the criminal," Piper retorted in a tone forced to sound casual. "It only proves the lack of intelligence of his pursuers."
"Are you saying you think we're idiots down at the station? Is that it?" Henry was on his feet now, knuckles stamped into the tablecloth as he leaned even farther over Wyatt's half-eaten plate.
"What I'm saying," Piper stressed, leaning forward to meet his defiance with her own, "is that if 'tailing' him seems to have gotten you no closer than you were three months ago, then trying a new method would be what most people call intelligent."
Wyatt, for his part, was trying his best to disappear under the table before either his mother or Henry could blow him up—and he didn't put it past his mortal uncle, either.
Eventually (with restraint courtesy of Leo and Paige), the conversation gave way to another that led them into dessert. With Wyatt, relieved to be out of the line of fire, energetically answering his grandpa's questions about the curriculum in his political science class, Piper called in Chris to help clear the table of its empty and half-empty dishes.
Meanwhile, she retrieved the chocolate-cake-with-pink-icing-and-rainbow-sprinkles from its hideout atop the fridge and rummaged through the junk drawer for the trick candles she had bought the afternoon before. She handed Chris a package of paper princess plates and a handful of plastic forks, which he dropped in a pile in the middle of the table. Once he dimmed the lights, she stuck her head into the dining room and motioned Phoebe inside.
The proud mother carried Katie's birthday cake into the room, trailed by her sister with a cake knife, both women beginning the 'happy birthday' song in two distinctly different keys. The other adults tried to combine the two, resulting in a third key that nobody could identify. Meanwhile, Wyatt and Chris did their best to sing as off-key as possible, voices belting out far above the rest, although sounding the closest by far to the correct tune. They thought themselves quite a riot when they sang their own "improved" version of the age-old song. Prue tried her best to match her brothers' voices, though their deep tones overpowered even her loudest attempt; and Lea stubbornly refused to sing at all, slouched in her chair with folded arms and a firm glare, unwilling to act like the fool that everyone else had so readily embraced. In his own little niche, oblivious to the others, Bobby sang to his own time and tune, grinning with delight. The moment he caught sight of the cake, he forgot the rest of the words.
"—birrrthdayyy… toooo… youuuuu!"
"—smell like… onnnne… toooooo!"
Piper threw her boys a disapproving glare as the cake was set down in front of her niece, but they were too impressed with themselves to notice.
Katie's eyes grew wide, a pale gray-blue that glittered even in the dark. She opened her hands as if to lean on the table, resting the bulk of her weight on them. The cake looked incredible—exactly what she'd described to Aunt Piper. Chocolate with pink icing—but not strawberry because strawberry didn't taste good; vanilla, only vanilla that was pink because Aunt Piper knew how to do that sort of thing, maybe with magic—and lots of rainbow sprinkles on top. Aunt Piper always made the tastiest foods, and she saved her most tastiest for Katie, she always told her—
"Make a wish! Make a wish!" Bobby insisted with impatience.
Katie looked around at the people surrounding her, all nodding to Bobby's request. They had abandoned their seats to crowd around her—Chris with his arm slung over Lea's shoulder, his face supporting a grin that suggested he knew exactly how much the gesture annoyed her; Grandpa behind them, nudging his grandson with his elbow; Prue squeezing between Uncle Leo and Daddy, both of whom stood close enough that their shoulders bumped every time Prue gave them another shove; Aunt Paige and Uncle Henry standing across from her, with Bobby standing tip-toed on his chair to get a better look, his arm clutching Aunt Paige's neck from behind, face peering past her; Aunt Piper standing behind her, waiting to cut the cake, one hand on a large knife and the other gripping the collar of Wyatt's shirt as Wyatt pretended to make a lunge for the cake; and Mommy standing right beside her, one hand resting on the back of Katie's chair, inches away from her skin, clinging tightly to the wood, compensating…
"Don't forget, if you blow out all the candles, your wish comes true. So make it a good one," Chris reminded her. With him momentarily distracted, Lea shoved him off and sent him sprawling into Grandpa, who caught him with a deep chuckle, amused by Lea's cleverly-executed attack.
Katie leaned closer to the cake, to the eight-plus-one-for-good-luck candles that, with the lights off, gave the room a soft glow. This close, she nearly convinced herself she could feel their heat. They feel warm, she thought—but she didn't really know what saying that meant. She didn't get warm, and she didn't get cold, only existed in a state of perpetual 'almost-chilly.' The flickering flames of melting candles reflected a deep orange in her gray eyes. It stared at her, dancing around its wicks, and she wondered if the fire—if it could feel the wick that kept it burning, though it seemed silly to her that the flame of a candle would rely its whole existence upon a single strand. It seemed, frankly, impossible to her that it could need anything when it didn't even lean on the wick, instead hovering above it, untouchable as long as it continued to burn.
She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and thought her wish as hard as she could.
When Katie opened her eyes, one stubborn candle kept burning. She blew it out. A second later, the candle beside it came alight, as if she had blown it back to life. It smirked at her, laughing sparks at her confusion. After a moment, she realized the people surrounding her, their smiles, were laughing, too. She blew out that one, and another burst back into flame. The harder she tried, the more forcefully they relit, sometimes even two at a time. Eventually, she stopped her futile endeavor, chest heaving with exertion. Backing away, she let her grinning mother take over, sprinkling the candles with water until they fizzled out one by one. But by that point it didn't matter—she couldn't blow out the candles.
"Well." Victor propped his chair up on its two back legs and clapped his hands over a rounded belly. "Piper, it was de-licious, as always."
She smiled at him as she collected dirty silverware from around the table. "Thanks, Dad." A hand freed itself from her bunch to pat her father's shoulder as she passed him. Others were nodding in agreement, except Bobby, too focused on scraping up what was left of his third piece, and Katie, who was idly mashing up the half that was left of her first slice. Piper took no offense; Katie easily lost her appetite, which wasn't very big to begin with. Eyes moving to her sons, one of whom was reaching for yet another slice, she instructed, "Boys, help me clear dessert off the table, would you?" When, groaning, Wyatt and Chris complied, trooping into the kitchen like battered soldiers, she hesitated before asking, "Prue, do you think you could help in the kitchen?"
Scoffing, the girl snapped, "'Course I can wash dishes. How old do you think I am?" Piper bit her lip to keep from admonishing the girl, an action Prue both noticed and glowered upon before stomping into the kitchen. A moment later they heard the faucet turn on. Suddenly drained, Piper sat down in Chris's empty seat. The silverware she collected was returned to the table. Phoebe and Paige both watched her with worry but said nothing as Wyatt and Chris filed in and out of the room, collecting everything from the table. Once cleared, the cousins excused themselves and followed Chris up to his room. Wyatt, determined to act like the adult he was, returned to his seat. They chatted for a few minutes, but the men all sensed the tension and decided to quietly excuse themselves as well. Finally, the sisters were left alone.
Phoebe turned a worried eye on her big sister and shifted to the next chair so that there was nothing between them. Paige, too, after a moment, scooted her chair closer, although remained in her seat on the opposite side of the table. "Hon, what's eating you?" the middle sister sighed. "You and Prue are on the cliffs. I can sense her frustration even through the anti-empath blocks we taught her."
Piper's head lowered until her forehead touched her arms, crossed on the table. "Frustration?" she repeated, the word muffled in the crook of her elbow. "Oh, is that what it is? Good." Phoebe and Paige shared a bewildered look. "I was beginning to think she hated me."
"For what?" Paige wondered. "You're the best mom in the world. You taught me how to be a mother when Bobby was born." Phoebe nodded her acquiescence. "What could she possibly resent?"
A little less practical and more sensitive, Phoebe crooned, "What happened?" Attempting sympathy for a pain she still didn't comprehend, she reached beneath Piper's folded arms to draw out a hand, squeezing it with reassurance. Piper glanced up, met her sister's troubled gaze, and forced a smile.
"It'll blow over," she insisted, convincing herself more than her sisters, who still had yet to understand what exactly 'it' was. "The dream she had last week—I told you about that, right?" When Phoebe and Paige nodded she continued, "Well, I guess, I mean—the stuff she must've seen… I can only imagine how it must've affected her and… well…"
"You don't know how to react?" Phoebe guessed.
Miserably, Piper nodded.
A moment passed in silence, during which Phoebe retrieved the other hand and scooted her chair closer so that their shoulders touched. Paige watched for a moment and then, opting for practicality, pointed out, "Well, Phoebe did say Prue felt frustrated…"
Piper looked up, confusion furrowing her brow. "Yeah…" she prompted.
"Well, you said you didn't know what to do. I know it's hard," she rushed to add, trying to sound as full of sympathy as her older sister, "to understand how she's feeling about whatever she saw… But the one thing you do know is that the way you're treating her now frustrates her. That's something you can correct." She stamped her hand on the table for emphasis. "Yeah, she's having a hard time, and I'm sure what she saw was scary. Maybe she wants to come talk to you about but is afraid that you'll treat her like even more of a baby. She just wants to be treated like an adult, Piper."
"She's not an adult," Piper protested, "She's just a child."
"She's almost a teenager." Piper lowered her gaze to the tablecloth, unable to counter the point. Insistent, Paige pressed on, "You said it yourself, all they want at this stage is independence. You're worried about her, and that's legitimate. But she's right to want you to see her as a real person."
Nobody broke the silence, the two younger women waiting for their sister to speak and the latter too conflicted to think of what to say. How could she just let Prue walk out the door like everything was fine and dandy when she knew that what her daughter had seen—well, it had been enough for her son to sacrifice his life to change? What kind of mother would she be to any of her children if she were willing to turn a blind eye to their cries of pain, even ones left unvoiced? But then… was Prue better off like this—treated like a doll reserved for high places and kept out of reach, thoroughly miserable? She sighed, finally looking up to meet two pairs of concerned eyes. Glancing sidelong at Phoebe with a dry smile, she said, jerking her head toward Paige, "Look at this one—been a teacher for nearly fifteen years now, and she still thinks she's a social worker."
They shared a relieved laugh and didn't move to stop Piper when she stood up and headed into the kitchen. However, when she started to tackle the dishes piled into the sink, Phoebe snatched the sponge from her hand and Paige usurped the faucet. Between the two of them they convinced their oldest sister to let the dishwasher do its job, and helped her load it before dragging her into the sunroom, where the men had gathered upon their dismissal. The sisters found seats beside their husbands while, as per an instruction from Piper, Wyatt leapt up to collect his cousins and siblings. They returned from upstairs a few moments later and situated themselves in vacant seats or on the floor. At a nod from Paige, Henry produced from behind him a large, square box wrapped somewhat sloppily in silver paper, as if the wrapping had been an afterthought, and a belated one at that.
Sitting between her parents on the couch, the birthday girl accepted the gift with a gracious, Katie-like smile and carefully began to remove the tape around the edges.
"Oh, for goodness sake!" Lea snapped, and snatched from the floor Grandpa's gift, which Phoebe had brought in from the dining room. She had the green paper halfway off before her mother could even begin admonishing her.
"Melinda!" she cried.
"What?" Lea countered, "At the rate she's going we'll be here forever."
From behind her mother's arm, Katie murmured, "I don't mind, Mommy." When Phoebe only raised an eyebrow at her younger daughter, the girl insisted, "Really. It'll go faster this way." Lea paused, less interested in unwrapping now that she had received expressed permission, but then seemed to decide her impatience outweighed her rebelliousness, and continued to tear the paper off the box.
Minutes later, Katie had transferred herself to the floor amidst all the discarded wrapping paper. Chris was working to wrestle the childproof packaging off Butt-Kick Barbie (which Paige herself had renamed from Hiker Barbie: Full Terrain). Prue had fetched a knife from the kitchen and was slicing through the tape on the Do-It-Yourself Beaded Jewelry Kit that her own parents had bought. Through all the ruckus, Bobby wriggled off Paige's lap and got his hands on Grandpa's present.
Eventually, fed up, Wyatt snorted, "Wow, Chris, who'd'a thought you'd get your butt kicked by Butt-Kick Barbie?"
Chris scowled. "This stuff is hard to get through!" he complained. "If you're so smart, you open it."
"Fine." When Chris shoved it toward his brother, Wyatt made no move to accept it. Instead, smirking, he pronounced, "Barbie." The box in Chris's hand glowed, flakes of blue scrambling beneath the plastic. When they vanished, the box was left empty, and in Wyatt's hand was the figurine with bleach-blond hair, a plastic smile, and an army-patterned pair of shorts and jacket. Wyatt smiled sweetly as he returned it to his younger brother.
"That's cheating," Chris grumbled, chucking the now-empty box over his shoulder.
"That's resourceful," Wyatt corrected with a smirk.
"That's cause for extra chores," their mother pointed out, effectively wiping the grin off one son's face and prompting it on the other's.
"Hey, Grammpa, is this a cat?"
Bobby had gotten his hands on the box of figurines their grandfather had brought back from Singapore and was now rooting around inside it, extracting each piece for individual scrutiny.
"Well, uh, actually—" Victor squinted at the precise sculpture squashed within Bobby's fist. "That looks like a mongoose. They have that in the zoo in Singapore." By the time Victor had finished explaining, Bobby, grown bored of that one, had already discarded it for the next.
"This one's a kangaroo, right?" He waved it in the air to give Victor a better look, although the old man's eyes seemed to have difficulty focusing on the object in motion.
"No, that's a wallaby. Those are similar to kangaroos, see, but they're generally much smaller. Also, their teeth in the back there"—he opened his mouth to point to his own teeth as demonstration—"are a row of straight teeth, and for a kangaroo the teeth are…" When he realized he had lost Bobby's attention, he let the mini-lesson trail off.
At some point over the next half hour, the parents and Victor returned to sit in the dining, each keeping half an ear out for any screaming children. They heard stomping and laughing and shrieking but no sounds to indicate agonizing or near-death encounters. All of a sudden, though, just as Victor was depicting his encounter with an overzealous native, Katie came tearing into the room. She stopped just short of her father's chair and sobbed, "I'm not having fun; I wanna go home!"
Coop stared at his wife, completely at a loss. Even upset, Katie never lost her temper like this. It put too much of a strain on her body that, for her, the anger wasn't worth the effort. What had prompted a reaction so unlike their younger child? "What happened, munchkin?" he asked, voice soft.
"Lea's being mean to me, and I didn't get to open my presents by myself, and my butterfly necklace broke, and I wanna go home!"
Phoebe scrutinized her daughter's pale complexion; the girl had worked herself into a flush that rose to her cheeks, an appearance healthy for anyone else—but Katie never got worked up and never got colored in the sun.
Scooting off her chair to kneel beside her daughter, she soothed, "It's okay, baby doll, it's okay. Are you feeling icky? Is that it? Are you feeling hot? Tell me how you feel."
Hands balling into fists, the girl screamed at the top of her quiet voice, "I'm not feeling warm! I never feel warm! And I don't feel icky! I just wanna go home!"
Phoebe spared a glance at her older sister, who, looking just as worried as she, gave an immediate nod. Phoebe turned back to Coop, sighing, "We should probably go. Maybe this was just overwhelming for her. It's been a long day, and she barely napped. Can you go collect Lea? I'll take Katie to the car."
"You want me to heal her?" Paige offered.
Flashing half a smile, Phoebe said, "We'll see how she is in the morning. Maybe it'll pass." She lowered her voice to croon to her daughter, "Come on, baby, let's get your jacket on, okay? We're gonna go home, and maybe we'll have a nice bedtime story before bed. How's that sound, hm? Come on, baby…" She led the sniffling child out of the room with a last backward glance at the tail end of their latest family dinner.
What's there to say? Of course I'm apologetic, but that doesn't condone the fact that I've left you guys hanging for the better part of a year. I'm working as fast as I can to finish the story so that I can post it all - but I also want to make sure it's decently written. I debated very much with this chapter. If I gave myself more time, I'd fix it up properly. That's why a casual dinner all of a sudden turned into this dramatic to-do with everyone leaking their psychological disturbances all over the place. When I spread out the writing over a couple of weeks, with space in between the day I write and the day I edit, I can write a calmer, more normal chapter. But I decided - at least this once - I had to give up striving for excellence in favor of getting it to you this week. I'm unhappy with the ridiculous turn it took, but that's the way the world works. Can't like everything, can you? In any case, a couple of other notes:
Number one, since there is debate over this depending on the school, I want to clarify what I meant by Kindergarten. Some schools have the grades, in ascending order, as nursery, primary (i.e. pre-K), Kindergarden, and then first grade. Some schools have nursery, Kindergarden, primary (i.e. pre-1A), and then first grade. Because I grew up with the former, that's what I wrote - so the Kindergarden here would be the five-turning-six-year-old. Not a major plot development, but I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.
Along the same lines, in case anyone uses a different term, the word "string beans" is the same food as "green beans." (Better safe than sorry, right?)