The gentle murmur of spring rain pelting against the windows echoed throughout the house, a soft glow seeping past the droplets adorning the glass and casting a halo over the rose colored sofa. Amber turned, shying away from the prying light and curling up under a coarse quilt that was lazily thrown over the couch. Before her stood the front door, a thick wooden panel that protected her from the intrusive blares of car horns and the everlasting bustle of a Friday afternoon. Amber stared out of the miniscule window within it, keeping a keen eye on the pathway that led up to the empty garage, before averting her gaze and looking over at the clock right above the door. 4PM, officially an hour since her mother had left for the supermarket, officially too long for her mother to be running a simple errand. Mayhaps she had been caught up deciding which brand of bread to buy, or got lost trying to find shampoo.
Amber groaned, painstakingly rising from the fluffy cushions and reaching for her phone, her fingers only grazing the screen before the sound of jingling metal rose from the entrance. She whipped around to find her mother’s figure standing in the doorway, three overflowing plastic bags of groceries in one hand and her obnoxiously loud keys in the other. Amber straightened, approaching her mother to help put away the groceries. She stopped only a few steps before reaching out, the wide grin on her mother’s face sparking a momentary feeling of uneasiness. Cautiously, Amber eased closer to grab a grocery bag, furrowing her eyebrows at the way her mother’s sickly sweet smile felt so out of place, like a piece of a different puzzle.
Her mother didn’t bother to take her shoes off or even close the door, instead dropping the grocery bags on the floor and darting towards the kitchen before pouring herself a cup of lukewarm coffee. Amber tilted her head, a swarm of perplexed thoughts encircling her mind. Usually, her mother was quite astute on keeping her shoes by the door and double-checking that it was locked. Not once had she seen her mother leave the front door unlocked or walk around the house with dirt-covered shoes, staining the polished wooden floor with black smudges that would be virtually impossible to remove.
Amber placed the grocery bag on the dining table with a huff, walking over to put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. After a single squeeze, she recoiled, feeling a grotesquely thin arm underneath her mother’s clothes. Amber’s eyes darted to the back of her head, raking over the way her mother’s skin uncomfortably stretched behind her ear and formed unnatural folds, like how a bodysuit wrinkled around crevices. Her mother turned around and somehow broadened her uncanny smile, though it didn’t meet her eyes.
Amber watched her mother walk off towards the dining table where one of the grocery bags laid, her gait uneven and wobbly. A pungent odor that Amber somehow hadn’t caught followed her—the smell of decay veiled by perfume. The warm glow coming in through the windows had faded away now, only leaving a melancholy darkness in its wake. Amber’s mother seemed to prefer it that way, choosing to sit at the head of the table and away from the lightbulbs above. It was that corner of obscurity that revealed how her mother hunched over her seat and peered at the contents of the bag, her sunken eyes glancing dismissively at the fruit and cereal before stopping right at the slab of beef at the very bottom of the pile; the very first object that had been put inside.
Amber almost gagged at the look of utter starvation slowly invading her mother’s darkening expression. Hesitantly, she walked back to the sofa where she had been lying before, sinking into the pillows and pursing her lips at how the previously nurturing fabric had turned unwelcoming. Her phone, discarded on the coffee table only a few feet in front of the couch, lit up; a single text box appeared on the screen saver—a message.
Hey, hon, sorry for the silence! The car broke down. Getting home now.
