The Girl With the Blue Eyes

Kari’s name was rubbed off the calendar next to the fridge. The table had one less setting. Her blue toothbrush was missing from the mug in the bathroom.

Audrey missed a day of school. Then two. Then a week. Then two. Eventually, she stopped going at all. Her parents fought. Later, Audrey would learn that this was a common thing for families where a child has died, but she was young, alone, and her parents threw insults through the air that cut like knives.

The cupboard they stored spare bedding in became her sanctuary. When it looked like Greg and Emma were going to fight, Audrey would get up, silently, and shut herself in the cupboard. Sometimes they fought for hours. At dinnertime they would call her down, and they would eat together, and they would make conversation. Sometimes they fought for days, and Audrey wouldn’t be called to eat. She took refuge in the cupboard, now stocked with books, a torch and all the food she could carry in her small arms.

It had been years, and Audrey was eleven.

There had been no words today. Audrey had been allowed to sleep very late. When she did open her eyes, shielding them from the burning light of the sun peeking through her curtains, she glanced over at her watch. Her grandmother had given it to her a while ago now, at Christmas, the first Christmas without Kari. Emma had cried. The watch had a cat on it, and the cat looked happy. It was past twelve, she knew, but she hadn’t practised time-telling with her home tutor in a while. Which hand told the hour - the longest one? Was the longest one because it was the more important one? Deciding it didn’t matter, she brushed her teeth, aware of the noise her feet made on the laminate flooring. The house was still silent but for the sound of the running water. She dressed. Silence usually meant a fight had just ended. She brushed her hair and tied it up herself. It looked worse than before but it meant her mother didn’t do it. She bit her nail and went to the top of the stairs, briefly wondering whether it would be better to just sit in her cupboard now. She stood at the top of the stairs and summoned up the courage to go downstairs, afraid of what she might find. One, two, three. She didn’t move.