E.A. Brady

Reaching her small hand underneath the pillow, Rylee grabbed out the balled-up pajamas she had shoved under there earlier that morning. As she pulled them out, a scrap of cotton fabric, off-white with baby-blue pinstripes, fell to the floor. Without a second glance, she rescued the fabric, tucked it safely back into its hiding place, then exchanged her jeans and knit sweater for new her favorite PJs – purple and green flannel pants with a matching button-up top. The flannel was warm and soft against her skin, and the fact that they had been a Christmas gift from her favorite aunt and uncle only served to elevate their status.

“Hey, Dad,” Rylee called. As many times as her father had told her to lift the lid and put the dirty clothes inside, she still just tossed them on top of the plastic hamper on the way out of her bedroom. Her green, fluffy frog slippers gently whooshed along the dark wood floor between the door and the top of the staircase. She grabbed hold of the railing and yelled down, “Wanna play a game or something?”

It was still at least half an hour before her eight o’clock bedtime, but winter in southern Maine meant that the sun had gone down hours ago. From the middle of the staircase, she could see her father look up at her from his leather reading chair on the far side of the room. Warm, flickering yellow light from the fireplace cast jumping shadows all over and around him.

Seth closed ‘Salem’s Lot and set it down on the coffee table. “I don’t know. Are you all ready for bed?”

“Yes.”

“PJs on?”

“Yup.”

“Teeth brushed?”

“Yup.”

“Nose picked?”

“Eww! That’s gross,” she said as she hopped down the remaining stairs, giving life to the frog faces on her feet. 

Seth laughed. “Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.” Rylee leaped from the square landing, over the last two steps to the floor, stopping directly between the media cabinet and the brick hearth surrounding the fireplace. “Careful,” he said, a touch of familiar parental warning in his voice.

Her face serious, brows knitted, she said, “I’m fine. Frogs are good hoppers, you know.”

“Just be careful, little frog.” He smiled his regular half-smile at her. “Dads are good worriers, you know.”

Rylee threw her hands up in feigned exasperation. “I know. I know.” She giggled while she frog-hopped around to the front of the TV cabinet. The hum of the dishwasher in the kitchen stopped, was quiet for a few seconds, then started up again. The crackle and hiss of the fireplace was constant. “What game do you wanna play?” She was only six years old, but she knew how to play some games that were clearly intended for the eight-and-up crowd. “We could play Life,” she said. “Or Clue or Guess Who?”

“I think Clue works better with more than two people,” Seth said. “Maybe we should wait for a night when Simone is here for that one.”

Ugh. Simone. If Rylee had been a super hero, Simone would be her archenemy; the Red Skull to Rylee’s Captain America. Simone always had something to say. About everything. And she never took Rylee’s thoughts or comments seriously. About anything. The combination of those two things meant that Simone and Rylee spent a lot of time fighting with one another, and those fights almost always ended with Rylee being scolded, by Simone or her father, then being sent to her room for back-talking. Luckily, being sent to her room wasn’t much of a punishment for Rylee. Her toys and books were up there, and she could play with her doll house for hours at a time. Sometimes, even after her father allowed her to come back downstairs, she would choose to stay up there and keep playing.

Rylee scowled as she thought about Simone. Words formed in her mind then sat at the edge of her lips, waiting to be spat out.I hate her. I hope she never comes back here. Ever. She can take her ugly straw hair and her poop-colored eyes and just stay away from us. Rylee’s mouth opened to unload those thoughts on her father, but as the words came out, they sounded more like, “Okay. Not Clue.”

 If her father noticed her scowl or her hesitation, he didn’t let on. “Maybe, since it’s almost bedtime,” he said, “we should stick with something a little quicker than Life. How about Guess Who? We haven’t played that in a while.” A loud pop from the fire caused a shower of sparks to fly behind the screen.

Rylee grabbed the light blue box with the big red letters from the middle of the stack of games and brought it to the coffee table. Seth moved from his chair onto the couch while Rylee set up the game trays, giving her father the red side and herself the blue. She dropped one of the throw pillows onto the floor on the opposite side of the table, where she sat to play the game, the radiant heat from the fireplace warming her back like a heavy electric blanket.

An hour later, after five rounds of Guess Who?, one trip to the bathroom, and two bedtime stories, Rylee lay in her bed, snuggled under her covers with her stuffed bunny, Rosie, tucked in beside her. Seth leaned over and kissed her forehead and then the end of her nose, the way he had done every night since Rylee had come to live here.

Before he walked to the door, Seth switched on the night light that sat on the bedside table near her head. “Good night, little frog. Have the sweetest dreams.”

“’Night, Daddy.” She closed her eyes and burrowed the side of her head into the soft coolness of her pillow. At the click of the closing door, her eyes popped back open and stared at the photo being illuminated by the soft white glow of the night light. A beautiful young woman sitting cross-legged on a bale of hay looked out from the frame. Her long, brown, wavy hair hung effortlessly over one shoulder. The huge smile on her face caused her bright blue eyes – eyes that looked just like Rylee’s – to scrunch up at the corners, as if someone had just told her a joke. The baby-blue pinstripes in her shirt matched perfectly with the blue sky behind her.

Rylee reached her hand under the pillow and found the hidden scrap of fabric, rubbing it between her thumb and fingertips. She squeezed Rosie the bunny as tight as she could.

Warm tears rolled across the bridge of her nose, down her cheek, into the pillow, which caught them all, the way it had done every night since Rylee had come to live here.