Six Feet Under the Stars

Reilly walked quickly down the familiar streets of Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland. Her earliest memories were from this area, where she’d spent her youth playing in the park whilst her mother watched from a distance with the other parents. She’d received her first kiss when she was five from a boy with dark brown hair that had said she was prettier than his mom. She’d broken her leg after she’d fallen of the see-saw and had had to walk around for the next few weeks with a bright green cast. She remembered sitting with Hannah in the front yard, throwing sticks for their dogs and playing tag with the other kids in the street. And then Jasmine had turned up with her twenty year old stunning, model body and a four year old under her arm and ripped everything out from under her.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Hannah squealed as Reilly turned the last corner and pulled to a stop outside the familiar front door. A white picket fence ran around the trimmed lawn but Hannah ignored it and crossed over it in a light bounce, scooping Reilly into her arms. Reilly still felt awkward, but she hugged Hannah back with more enthusiasm that she had her half-sister.

“Neither can I,” Reilly sighed as they walked into Hannah’s front yard and sat down. In replace of the old swing set the girls had helped Hannah’s father make, a new metal frame work sat on the porch and the girls sank onto it, rocking it gently with their feet. “How are you?”

“Better than you, I imagine,” Hannah smiled. “God, Rei, you had to come back like this, didn’t you?”

“I should have visited, Hans. I… just couldn’t bring myself back here.” She could see her old house across the street and she sighed.

“I can’t say I blame you, Rei, I just wished it was easier, you know?”

The girls lapsed into silence. Reilly tried to think of things to say to Hannah to make up for the years they’d spent apart with the promise of a visit at every holiday. Instead, she said, “Did you know Jacqueline’s pregnant?”

“Damn, like mother like daughter, huh?”

“She wanted me to be happy for her. My father was dying in hospital and she wanted me to be Goddamn Santa Claus!” She pushed herself up from the swing and paced the porch, frustrated at her sister for taking time away from her and her father; for Jasmine’s forceful blaming; for the way Davis looked so damn happy to have his life ruined. She looked at Hannah pathetically. “What the fuck happened to my life?”

“Things are all down hill from eight,” Hannah joked. The corners of Reilly’s mouth tipped upwards and she sighed, settling herself back down on the swing. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like, you know.”

Reilly heaved another sigh, “I know.”

More silence filled them and, as if suddenly struck, Hannah looked about her. “Where’s your car, dude?”

“Oh, it ran out of gas by the park.”

“Want to go and save it and then play on the swings?”

“How did I get so lucky to have a friend like you?”

XXX

The round-about spun in swift circles as Hannah shoved it and then hopped onto the metal framework. Reilly was already laid across it, facing the sky as it swirled around her. She closed her eyes and smiled. Being at the park reminded her of being a child, with her mother and father, as a part of a family. It reminded her of playing hide and seek, of chasing birds and of taking the dogs for walks that turned into treasure hunts. Reilly missed being eight.

“Alex and I are still together,” Hannah finally piped up. From the tone of her voice, Reilly knew she was smiling. “It’s been two years.”

“That’s great,” Reilly said. And it was. Alex’s reputation before he’d met Hannah was a dismal one. He was portrayed as a playboy and a one-night-stand. He got drunk at parties and he fucked the first pair of legs that sauntered up to him. Hannah had found the boy underneath and she’d reined him in.

“The boys miss you.” Hannah paused and Reilly knew what was coming next. “They want to see you.”

“Hans…”

“I know that he broke your heart and I know that you haven’t gotten over him and I know that he hasn’t gotten over you.”

“It sure looked like it when I left,” Reilly scoffed.

“He doesn’t have to be there, the others were your friends too.”

“Fine.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes, but he can’t be there.”

“He won’t be,” Hannah promised and then jumped from the round-about to make a call.