Page 17 - Solstice Art & Literary Magazine 2021

When Luther walked into his daughter’s bedroom, she was standing on her bed in a deep lunge, holding a ruler out in front of her like a sword and bellowing into thin air.
“PIRATES, BEGONE OR FACE YO—oh, hi Dad!” She set the ruler down on top of the bookshelf that made up the backboard of her bed.
A dresser was sandwiched between it and a second bookshelf, which took up the entire back wall. Most of the shelves were crammed with books, but some higher up contained random odds and ends; one shelf was designed to look like the inside of a house and was filled with posing yarn dolls and other crafted figures, and another was entirely dedicated to origami flowers and animals. A desk and chair were pushed up against the adjacent wall, draped with a blanket—probably a set in one of her latest games. The three visible walls had each been painted a different vivid color: one red, one teal, and the last was pale yellow; she had sewn the purple rug herself. Rag dolls were strewn across the floor, as was another blanket. Her bedsheets were rumpled and thrown back.
Pepper’s paint-splattered hair had come mostly loose from her ponytail, and her green paja- ma pants were twisted sideways. She wore one enor-
mous bunny slipper; the other slipper was buried with her mother.
Luther raised an eyebrow at the chaos. “You... have a talent for entertaining yourself.”
“Yes, I do,” she proclaimed, throwing her arms wide and flopping back into her bed with a content sigh. He chuckled and picked his way through the
carnage on her floor and sat down on the edge of her bed, clutching his briefcase tightly. His lungs were already clenching from the complete lack of order, but it clearly gave his daughter immeasurable joy, so he did his best to manage. “You’re going to clean this up later, right?”
“But it was Sam’s idea, she was the one who wanted to protect the citizens of the land!” She picked up the only rag doll still on her bed. It was bigger than all the others, almost three feet tall. Its clothing was roughly sewn from seemingly random scraps of fabric, no doubt the product of one of Pepper’s creative moods. Its hair was made from vivid red yarn, tied in a braid with a ribbon. Pepper stared at its button eyes for a beat before snorting indignantly. “I never said that.”
“Pepper,” Luther cut in. He knew from past experiences that she could carry on any given imag- inary conversation for at least twenty minutes, and
GLACIA
ANALISE BUDZIAK
something about her make-believe friends always broke his heart, not to mention the way she talked like she was in a movie. Where had she gotten the idea that “protect the citizens of the land” was something normal people said?
When she looked up, he went on. “I wanted to talk to you.”
She frowned, setting Sam aside. “What is it?”
He bit his lip. Pepper didn’t break the ensu- ing silence, only stared at him blankly. Finally, he forced a smile and said, “A new family moved in down the street.”
“I know.”
Luther blinked at her. She had pulled Sam
back into her lap and was moving the doll’s arms up and down. “They have three kids. Two are twins, and they’re your age.”
“I know.”
Luther waited for Pepper to say something
else. She wasn’t dumb; he’d even call her brilliant, and he was certain she knew where he was going with this. If she did understand, though, she didn’t say so, forcing him to end the stretch of quiet once more. “I was thinking we could go over tonight and welcome them.”
“No thanks.”
He reached over and pulled Sam from Pep-
per’s fingers, or tried to. She tightened her grip and hugged Sam to her chest. “Pepper, don’t you want to make some friends?”
Pepper curled around Sam. “I have friends.” “Real friends.”
“Sam is real!” Pepper’s eyes began welling
with tears.
“I’m sorry, Pepper—”
CONTINUES
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