Show And Tell (1 of 5)

Britney looked small. Mostly because she was only five years old. She looked particularly small now because she was dragging a bag containing a sizable box between the row of desks to the front of the classroom.

“What do you have for Friday Show and Tell, Britney?” said Mrs. Maple, the kindergarten teacher.

“I have something in this box,” Britney beamed. She pulled the bag down around the unadorned cube shaped box. It was at least a foot long on each side. She unfolded the top and pulled from it a head: a blond-haired, feminine, adult-sized, mannequin head with rather realistic eyes.

Some of the children giggled.

“This is my Mommy’s head. I borrowed it a few days ago.”

“Does your mother know you borrowed it?”

“I’m sure she does. It’s her head.”

“Yes, but did you tell her you were taking it?”

“She was there when I took it.”

“Okay. Continue your report.”

“This is my Mommy’s head. She has this round thing in her room and sometimes she stands on it. When she was last standing on it, I took her head.”

“What does she use this head for?”

“Same as you, I guess. She looks at things. Eats things. Kisses Daddy. I don’t think you kiss my Daddy, right?”

The children laughed again.

“But, this is a mannequin head. She doesn’t kiss you father with that head.”

“Well, no, but he kisses her.”

“He kisses this head.”

“Sure, it’s Mommy’s head. Why wouldn’t he? Don’t you kiss your husband’s head?”

“What my husband and I do is private but I’ve never kissed a mannequin head. My husband doesn’t have one?”

“No? Mommy spends lots of time with a mannequin head.”

“She what?” Mrs. Maple was perplexed. “Are you saying your mother carries a mannequin head around with her?”

“Mrs. Maple, aren’t we supposed to ask the questions for Show and Tell?” one of the students said.

“Not all the time. Just when she’s a mannequin. See?” Britney showed Mrs. Maple the head again.

“How?”

“The round thing I said was in her room. It turns her into a mannequin.”

The children laughed. One child called out, “So, your mom’s a real dummy.” There was more laughter.

“That’s enough, Ethan,” Mrs. Maple said. “Britney, does your father know that you brought your mother’s head to school?”

She laughed. “No. He doesn’t know where Mommy is.”

“Why?”

“Because I hid her.”

This time the room’s laughter felt uplifting. Someone said, “I wish I could hide my mother.”

“How did you hide something a big as a person?”

She waved the bottom of the head at Mrs. Maple where she could see it had some kind of metal fastener. “I took her apart. Two arms, two legs, her body splits into two halves when she’s a mannequin. You taught us all about the parts of the body. Don’t you remember? And the hands and feet come off, too. I put her arm under the bed and her other arm… I think it’s in the hall closet. Her leg is under the bed in the room no one uses, I think.”

“How long ago did you hide her?”

“Monday.”

“Today’s Friday, Britney. Your father must be worried sick.”

“He does look kind of sad. I thought it would be funny.”

“You have to tell him what you did.”

“That’s why they call it show and tell,” a boy said.

Britney was about to start crying. “Will he be mad?”

“No, no, Britney, he’ll just be happy your mother is safe.”

“And then he’ll be mad,” said the same boy.

A little girl said, “Is Britney done? I have a cool scarf my Grammy and I made.”

*****

Years went by.

Selena poked her head into Britney’s room. The girl and her friend from her fourth grade class were sitting on the bed looking at their tablets and showing one another videos they found.

“Britney, you’re father’s home. I’m leaving. Does your friend need a ride home?”

Darla, her friend, said, “No, I live a few doors down. I’ll walk home.”

“Okay, take care.”

Britney jumped up and gave Selena a hug. “Good night, Selena.”

After she left, Darla said, “Is she your nanny?”

“Not exactly. She’s Dad’s girlfriend.”

Darla frowned. She seemed to be struggling to figure out if she should say something.

“You can ask,” Britney said. “I’m sure Christina and Beth told you never to ask me about my Mom.”

“How did you know?”

“You weren’t around at the time. They were,” she said. She sat on the bed next to Darla. “If I cry, just give me a hug. When I was five….”

A few moments later, Darla was trying not to cry as she was holding her crying friend.

“She’s in the attic?”

Britney nodded. “I go up there and talk to her sometimes. Sometimes it helps. Recently, it’s started to just make me cry more. Dad tells me all the time I shouldn’t blame myself for a mistake I made as a five year old.”

“He’s right.”

“That’s doesn’t solve the problem though.”

“And your Dad has a girlfriend?”

“Selena’s cool. She reminds us to take Mom into consideration whenever we might have put Mom too much out of our minds. Dad’s asked her to move in. But I know she won’t do that. She tells him she won’t, for my sake.”

“Where’s the mannequin machine?”

“Mannequin Disk. It’s under my bed. Dad hid it. When I found it, I moved it under my bed.”

“How did you find it?”

“I’m still looking for Mom’s foot. Dad doesn’t know.”

*****

Britney ran into the living room waving a foot shaped object covered with dust. “I found it. I finally found her left foot.”

“Britney, you’re fourteen. Aren’t you too old to be running in the house like that?” Her father, Daniel, said.

“But, I found Mom’s foot after all these years,” Britney said. “Oh, hi, Selena.”

Her father’s eyes widened in shock and a bit of fear. He looked at Selena sitting on the sofa with him, her head resting on his chest. “That’s wonderful. We’ll put her together later.”

Selena stood up. “I suppose I should leave.”

“No, you don’t have… No, I suppose you do.”

“I don’t think I should be here when you’re reunited with Ashley. And you aren’t using me as an excuse to delay doing so, Daniel.”

Britney looked at her father expectantly.

Selena kissed Daniel on the cheek. “Go put your daughter’s mother back together. Though, you might want to wash that foot before reattaching it, Brit.”

“Good idea,” Britney said.

“I’ll call you later,” he said to Selena.

“No rush, Daniel. I’ll call you later, Britney.”

“Okay, Selena.”

She left.

“She’s very mature,” Britney said. “I’m sure Mom will love to get to know her like I have. I’m going to go wash this foot.”

“Do that and then put your mother back together. Shake any dust out of her hair. I’ll make sure the Mannequin Disk is charged up.”

“It should be. I used it last week.”

“Oh… Okay. That’s convenient. Good, good.”

“Okay? I thought you’d explode if you found out I was using it.”

“You’re about the same age as your mother was when she started using her first Mannequin Disk.”

“Really?”

“We can discuss this later.”

“Okay.”

*****

Ashley lay on the eggplant-colored sheets covering the bed in the master bedroom. She stared at the ceiling. She would never have purchased sheets that color. Daniel wouldn’t either. “Why haven’t you said a word to me since Britney went to bed, Daniel?”

“What should I say, Ashley?” He lay beside her staring at the ceiling. “We just spent an hour holding Britney and each other and crying together.”

“How does it take nine years to find a foot?”

“Britney was very good at hiding things.”

“Is that your excuse? I first heard about Selena from Britney seven years ago.”

“Yes, I met her eight years ago. Should I have lived as a monk these past nine years?”

“I wasn’t dead.”

“And you weren’t alive. And I had to raise Britney by myself. You were there when Britney returned your head after you’d gone missing for a week. Was I not relieved? Did I seem annoyed?”

“No, I had never seen you cry before.”

“And you witnessed us turning the house upside down looking for you. We tried. I tried. Do you know what I discovered?”

“What?”

“Britney wasn’t upset that you were stuck. She was five. She was happy she was getting to play hide and seek with Daddy.”

“Well, you never did play with her once she could walk.”

“I figured that out at the time,” he said. “She was having so much fun playing with Daddy, she was moving your missing parts around. Whenever she would find one, she would hide it in places we’d already looked.”

“No, she didn’t.” She looked at Daniel’s sad face.

“I watched her do it. She thought turning the house upside down with Daddy was the best way to get Daddy to play with her. And that was my fault for being distant from her when she was younger. I get that. I couldn’t get mad at her for extending our play time by months.”

He let out a deep sigh before continuing, “She was too young to understand why it was wrong. So, I played along. Those ten months were so much fun. So much fun until I realized I’d never seen her move the missing left foot. I’d seen her move the right foot, both hands, and a calf. But never the left foot. There would be no end to the game.

“I forced an end. Shortly before her seventh birthday, only the left foot was missing and she no longer wanted to play. She would cry for days because she realized she had lost your foot for real. That’s when I moved you to the attic. That’s also around the time when I met Selena.

“I introduced them to one another far sooner than I should have. Britney latched on to Selena. Everything seemed better except Britney still cried about you. She constantly blamed herself. She was relieved when she found out I knew she had been hiding your parts. It made her feel what she had done was okay. She was still mad at herself for the foot. I thought she had moved on. But, I guess she was still searching.”

“I can’t believe she got into that crawlspace when she was five.”

He was crying.

She held him and began to tear up. “Should I leave? What did my mother say? Or my sister?”

“Britney said she texted your sister. Amanda should be here tomorrow. They hate Selena. Selena did nothing to them. She was a rock for Britney. She never moved in. I asked her to multiple times. She refused to do it. I’m positive if I had been a widower she would have moved in. But, because you really weren’t gone, she wouldn’t do it. She thought it would be wrong for Britney’s sake.”

“She bought these sheets.”

“She did domestic things, yes. She did the thing I wasn’t going to do or just couldn’t do.”

“You had sex with her on these sheets.”

“We’ll buy new sheets. Do you want to strip them off the bed right now?”

She just shook her head. “It’s fine.”

“I don’t want you to leave. But, I don’t know what we’re going to do. You look nine years younger than you should. No one would believe Britney is your daughter. They’ll think I robbed you from the cradle. Not that any of that really matters.”

“We can worry about that tomorrow. Britney use to tell me everything that happened to her until about three years ago when her updates became less frequent.”

“Britney kept looking for your foot, apparently. Frankly, that’s around that same time she stopped talking to me. Selena might have more insight.”

The room was silent for a few moments.

He held her. “Ashley, I never stopped loving you.”

*****

The noise of a pan hitting the floor reverberated through the kitchen. “Why isn’t anything where it should be?”

“Mom?!” Britney rushed into the kitchen. Half the cabinet doors were hanging half open. A carton of eggs sat next to the stove top.

“I just wanted to scramble an egg. These aren’t my pans. Where’s the butter?”

“Mom, mom,” Britney said trying to grab her by the shoulders. “Just sit here. I’ll make an egg for you.”

“I never got the chance...” It started as a wail. When Ashley realized how it sounded she toned her voice back with effort. “I never got the chance to teach you how to cook.”

“Mom. It’s okay. I’m sure you can still teach me things about cooking. Just calm down. Do you want coffee?”

“You don’t even know I hate coffee?” Harsh resignation permeated her voice. “I drink tea, Darling. I couldn’t find that either.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dad buy tea.”

“Of course. Why would he?”

“We can go shopping later.”

“All my credit cards expired and probably haven’t been reissued. I can’t drive. My license has to be renewed first. Since it lapsed, I might have to take the stupid test again. I don’t have a working phone. My phone number I’ve had since high school has probably been reassigned.”

“All of that can be solved. Freaking out won’t solve anything.”

“I’m sorry, Honey. I shouldn’t unload on you. I shouldn’t need you to be my voice of reason.” She wiped her eyes and sat up straighter. “I would love it if you made a scrambled egg for me.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“For the next couple hours, I hope.”

“Good enough.”

The two of them were talking about Britney’s school classes when Daniel entered the kitchen.

“Did I hear yelling?”

“Probably, Dad. It’s fine now. Mom is having trouble only Rip Van Winkle could sympathize with. You should take the day off to help her resume her life.”

“Already told my boss I’d be unavailable for a few days. I made an appointment with my… our lawyer tomorrow morning at ten. That was the earliest we could get an appointment. We need paperwork to get Mom back on my company insurance plan. She needs a medical exam to update her vaccines. Her driver’s license will be expired. I sold her car several years ago. We’ll have to do something about that eventually.”

“I’m a bit stressed,” Ashley said. “Ironically, I used to use the Mannequin Disk to relax. I understand you’ve been using it, Britney. Why?”

“It is relaxing. I started using it to make sure it was still working when…”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. It was my fau…”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Dad said. At the same time, Mom said, “It wasn’t your fault.” They laughed.

“At least you two agree on something,” Britney said. She brought a couple plates with scrambled eggs to the table. “I know I was only five. That doesn’t take away my feelings of guilt.”

“Britney,” her father said. “The next time you feel even the slightest pang of guilt, ask yourself who was supposed to be watching that five year old and didn’t notice she took an entire mannequin a part and hid it in her room without that person noticing.”

“You?” Britney said.

“And apparently, as much as I’ve told you it wasn’t your fault, I wasn’t clear on why.”

There was an awkward pause.

“When I came down here I was thinking Mom could take me to school. But she can’t,” Britney said.

“I’ll go with you and your father. I don’t think I want to spend time alone if I don’t have to.”

“Oh, god, were you lonely in the attic?”

“Don’t think about it. I understand why I was in the attic. Wow, these eggs are so good, Britney.”

Tears welled in Britney’s eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”

*****

After dropping Britney off at school, Ashley said, “Now what?”

“How much is different?” He said, indicating the town around them with his hands.

“Oh, god. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Britney. But, I barely recognize anything, and I was born in this town. The downtown area, that you went out of your way to drive through was a completely different town from the one I knew. There were two extra traffic lights. The buildings are mostly untouched but the store fronts are all different.”

He put the car in drive and pulled away. “Not completely new.” He rattled off a list of places that had closed since she’d been gone. He explained what happened to the ones he’d heard anything special about. He parked near the train station and pointed to a small cafe. “That’s still there.”

“Oh, wow! You remembered?”

“Let’s go in. I’m sorry. I’m sure you were looking tea before I got to the kitchen.”

“They renovated,” she said as they entered the cafe.

“Twice. I think…”

“Ashley? Is that you?”

“Paulina?” Ashley was surprised to see her friend from when she was in high school. She was wearing a smock with the cafe’s logo emblazoned on the front.

“My god, Ashley, you don’t look a day over twenty-five. Where have you been hiding her, Daniel?”

“Cardboard box in the attic.”

Ashley stifled a laugh.

“Funny. You’re favorite seat is right over there.”

After Paulina stepped away, Ashley said, “Does Selena like it here?”

“I’ve never brought her here.”

“No?”

He pointed across the room. “That booth was where we sat when you accepted my invitation for coffee seventeen years ago.”

“Here’s your coffee, Daniel. And your Chamomile tea with a squirt of orange juice,” Paulina said. She also placed a couple croissants on the table without mentioning them.

“You remembered?”

“Why would I forget? Enjoy.”

“Thank you, Paulina,” Daniel said.

Ashley took a drink. “Oh, this is what I wanted earlier at home.”

“I’m still sorry you didn’t have any tea at home.”

“No, no. I understand. Did something change? You were so aloof last night.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to believe you were real. We haven’t spoken in nine years. I’m not the same person. I doubt you are either. I know I’ll never understand what you went through. But, it wasn’t fair of me to just assume we couldn’t stay together. So, I have to try. Not for Britney. For us. We made a promise to one another.”

“What about Selena?”

“She will be a part of whatever goes forward if you allow it. She’s been there for Britney. And I believe she’s been there for you. Far more than I have. I’ve seen her coming out of the attic after talking to you. At first, I thought that was weird. Was it?”

“It was, at first. But, she was my only connection to the world after you and Britney stopped visiting me.”

“I’m so sorry about that. It was just easier to pretend you were gone than to constantly face the reality of your… ordeal.”

“As Britney said to me earlier, all that can be solved.”

*****

Mr. Maple was confused. His wife had just told him she’d received a text from a former student. He had no idea why this text had made his wife so happy, especially when she read it out loud to him. It read: I found her foot!