After See

by Megan Auffart

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I'm working on this story for college, which means that it's going to be one of my longer ones. It also means that, if there is any hope in the world, I am going to finish it, dammit! So please, review! Review Review Review! Thanks!
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There wasn’t anything left in the refrigerator besides a jar of mustard and half a carton of milk. Teesha opened the crisper drawer, hoping to find an apple, but it was empty. As was the freezer. As were the cupboards and the pantry. Teesha couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her aunt’s kitchen so empty of food.

“Teesha?”

Teesha looked up, startled, to see her aunt Anissa standing at the kitchen door, the light from the bay windows in the living room streaming in white around her head, like a poor man’s halo.

“Morning, Aunt Anissa, “ Teesha managed to say, only vaguely aware that the refrigerator door was still open, spilling out all the cold air. Teesha’s momma had taught her from an early age to not keep the fridge door open for too long, but as soon as she saw her aunt, the childhood rule disappeared from her head. Teesha had never seen Aunt Anissa looking so beautiful.

Aunt Anissa’s skin, usually a chalky sort of brown from years of working at the bleach factory, now looked as creamy as the type of chocolate that cost an entire month’s paycheck to purchase. The wrinkles in her forehead were gone, smoothed out, and the tiny mole that had sat on her aunt’s chin since Teesha could remember had vanished. Even her hair had improved, looking professionally styled, and Teesha would bet her life’s savings that her aunt’s bathrobe had cost more than the priciest one at Wal-Mart.

“Oh, my god,” Teesha squealed and let go of the refrigerator door. Taking off at a run, she launched herself towards her aunt. “You look so great!” Wrapping her arms around her aunt, she squealed again at how little there was to hug. “You lost weight!”

Aunt Anissa smiled and patted Teesha on her head in the way that Teesha had always hated. She’d told her aunt before how much she didn’t like it; Teesha had always found it a little bit condescending. Aunt Anissa had probably forgotten.

“What in the world are you doing here?” Her aunt’s voice was imperious as she detangled herself from Teesha’s arms.

“Checking up on you,” Teesha replied, instinctively stepping back. She’d never heard her aunt speak in that tone of voice before. “Mom was worried about you – you haven’t stopped by in ages, you know – and she told me to get off at the Henderson’s bus stop and see how you were. The door wasn’t locked... I hope you don’t mind.”

Her aunt smiled again, but this time her teeth didn’t show and her lips seemed too pressed together.

“And your mother doesn’t believe in a telephone?”

Teesha paused and looked down at the tiled floor, noting how clean it was, how free of dirt. Since the accident, her mother didn’t really clean anymore, and Teesha never had the time to do it all herself. There were perpetually dirty dishes in the sink, but she’d managed to get rid most of the black ants that had been scavenging throughout the kitchen. The insect spray had worked pretty well, even though it had been from the dollar store, but Teesha’s momma hadn’t even noticed the ants were gone.

Aunt Anissa was waiting. “Um,” Teesha mumbled, “they cut the phone line last week.”

Still looking at the too-clean tiles, she waited for Aunt Anissa to demand what had happened, why hadn’t they paid the phone bill, why they hadn’t come to her earlier. Sometimes Teesha wanted to know herself, but she was usually too scared to ask and her momma wasn’t in any condition to answer, anymore. But instead of looking concerned or even asking what happened, Aunt Anissa uncaringly pressed on. “And you couldn’t use a neighbor’s phone?”

Teesha stared at her aunt, double-checking the shape of her nose, her mouth, the high cheekbones and color of her eyes. Even though the wrinkles were gone, the thick curve of her lips was not. Nor was the high arch of her nose or the almond shape of her eyes. Those had always been her aunt’s best features, and Teesha knew them by heart, from years of spending time at Aunt Anissa’s house. Teesha also knew from experience how protective Aunt Anissa was of her only sister, so why was she acting like she didn’t care?

“I…”

Her aunt shook her head, quickly left to right and back again. Dismissive.

“Never mind that,” she said and pushed Teesha a bit harder than was necessary to get her to move out of the kitchen. “I’m expecting somebody very important and I need to finish getting ready.”

“Who?”

“No one you would know,” her aunt said, steering Teesha towards the front door, “so I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

“Hey!” Teesha pulled herself away from her aunt’s grasp and accidentally brushed her shoulder against a very expensive-looking painting on the wall that she’d never noticed before. “I want to see Danny!”

“Why?” Aunt Anissa said, looking out one of the front windows. In the back of her mind, Teesha noted that her aunt had gotten new curtains, too, along with a new leather couch for the living room and an ugly new personality.

“Because!”

“I don’t have time for this, Teesha. I have a very important person to see right now. You can play with Danny later.”

Teesha frowned, “He’s not a doll. I don’t want to play with him. I want to say hello.”

“Well, you can’t…,” her aunt started to say, but then one of the weirdest cars Teesha had ever seen pulled up into her aunt’s driveway. It was like one of those older-looking cars that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the 1920s, painted a dark red with the windows tinted so dark that they looked black. The hubcaps were so shiny that Teesha had to turn her head and blink a few times because the sunlight reflecting off of them was so bright. As she watched, one of the windows in the back of the vehicle rolled down a couple inches and Teesha saw a pair of fashionable sunglasses peer out at the house, before the window rolled back up again.

To be continued....