Jaimie shivered as she looked out the window. It wasn't early, but it may as well have been. The winter air was cold and crisp while the gray clouds hung low and motionless in the sky with no intention of moving. They were stuck there. Much like Jaimie.
She looked out the window and down the street through her puffy eyes. She couldn't see anything and was too tired to look much further. Further down the street, further down the road in time, in life, it didn't matter, she was too tired to look and there was nothing there worth looking at anyway. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cold window pane. Maybe it would numb her mind.
In the background she could hear her mother ranting and raving about nothing and everything at the same time. Where were her cognac, leather shoes? Where did she put the directions she printed off? And for heaven's sake where was their father already?! He always does this when I have some place to be! The unintentional muttering continued in an all too familiar, intentional way.
Jaimie felt guilty all of a sudden the he was their father. As if she needed to both apologize to her mother for having him for a dad and also scold her father for being late and ticking her mother off. The latter not because she cared that her mother had been made late, but because she cared that she had to sit there, trapped enduring the not-so-under-her-breath complaints.
Outside, a dog barked, a car came to a rolling stop in the muddy gravel and a horn honked. Music to her ears. She grabbed her backpack and headed for the door.
"Oh, nice! Don't get out of your car. Just honk annoyingly and grin like everything's hunky dory with you! Heaven forbid you care about anyone else for a change." Haley's words fell on tiny ears.
"Bye Mom. I'll see you...later." Six year old Noah said later because he didn't really know any other time more specific. Sometimes it was hours, sometimes it was days.
"Bye sweetie. I love you!" Haley proclaimed a little too emphatically. "Where's Jaimie? Is she in the car already? Did I ask her if she's seen my shoes lately?" Slam. Noah shut the door hard behind him.
"The wind must've caught it," Haley thought.
