by J.C. Martin
*****
“Taylor!” Joyce shouted, tapping a fingernail on the banister at the foot of the stairs. “I will not call you again! Come down now!”
“Coming!” She heard a flurry of activity upstairs involving opening and slamming of cupboard doors. Joyce sighed, draping her arms over the railing. She considered going upstairs to get Taylor, or feigning a bathroom break.
Anything but staying in the same room as her soon-to-be-ex-husband.
Come on Taylor...she urged. This whole dumb family dinner thing was your idea...
A peal of footfalls thundered down the steps. Taylor appeared, cheeks flushed, nearly colliding with her mother.
“What were you doing?” Joyce asked. “Dinner’s getting cold.”
“Just putting my toys away,” Taylor panted.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Brent called from the open kitchen. “I made your favourite.”
“Spaghetti bolognaise? It’s Dora’s favourite too! Can she have some?”
Joyce frowned. Putting up with the imaginary friend was one thing. Playing along was an entirely different matter, and a step too far.
“I don’t think we have enough food, honey,” she lied.
“She can have some of mine,” Taylor said.
“No,” Joyce replied. “Dor...pretend friends don’t eat.”
Taylor looked insulted. “Dora is not pretend. She’s real! Look, she’s right here!” She pointed to the spot beside her. “Can’t you see her?”
“That’s enough!” Joyce’s voice rose. “Stop this silly game at once!” Her daughter’s eyes doubled in size as a film of tears glazed her pupils.
“Oh, will you look at that.” Brent popped his head out from the kitchen. “I do have a tiny bit extra. Dora can have it, but only if you can tell me what we do before eating...”
“Wash our hands,” Taylor said, still teary. With one last wary look at her mother, she rushed to the bathroom.
As soon as her daughter was out of earshot, Joyce stormed into the kitchen.
“Stop undermining me in front of Taylor!” she said through gritted teeth.
“Give the kid a break. What’s the harm?”
“It isn’t healthy,” she hissed. “Stop encouraging her.”
Brent heaped steaming pasta onto an extra side plate. “She’ll grow out of it.”
“Not if you keep playing along with her!” Joyce snapped, slapping bolognaise sauce over a mound of spaghetti for emphasis. “It’s probably detrimental to her development.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “If anything, it’s good for her. It nurtures her creative side.”
“And what about her logical side? I suppose creativity would help when she grows up to be a penniless artist?”
It was a low shot, but it shut Brent up. Plates of food in hand, he swept past her with a stony glare just as Taylor reappeared. To Joyce’s vexation, Brent placed the spare plate of pasta at the empty seat beside her daughter’s. Taylor pulled out the unoccupied chair with a flourish.
“Dinner is served,” she announced, curtsying to her invisible companion. She leaned over to Brent and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for making dinner, Daddy, Dora says it smells yummy.”
Joyce ground her teeth. Brent 1, Joyce 0. She hated how he always made her out to be the bad guy, the uptight parent who was never any fun.
“Ooh, ooh! Daddy, you’ve gotta see the pictures we took in Mexico!” Before Joyce could protest, Taylor sprung out of her seat and disappeared into the living room, returning moments later with Joyce’s laptop.
Joyce stewed in stuffy silence as Brent ooh-ed and aah-ed over the holiday photos, with Taylor giving a running commentary: “This is the fountain in our hotel... This is Pedro the monkey. He can dance, you know... This is Pablo. He drove our boat...”
“Woah...” Brent said around a mouthful of pasta. “Are those dolls?”
“Yes!” Taylor beamed, a tomato sauce moustache forming above her lips. “It’s a whole island full of ‘em! And look...” she tapped a key, and the image of the derelict altar filled the screen.
“That’s awesome!”
“No it’s not,” Joyce said, stabbing at a lump of mince meat on her plate. “It’s a shrine for a dead kid. How sick is that?”
“It’s not sick,” Brent said. “I think it’s a pretty refreshing way of looking at death. If there is an afterlife, I’d like to think that a child’s spirit would be just as playful and innocent as in life. Why mourn the passing of a child with a cold, soulless headstone? Why not fill her memorial full of her favourite toys?”
“Trust you to find beauty in the macabre,” Joyce mumbled, but Brent had already returned his attention to Taylor. It was as if she wasn’t even there.
“So what have you been up to today?” he asked their daughter, who was trying to twirl as much spaghetti round her fork as possible.
“I played with some of my dolls.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time in your room,” Joyce said. “Why don’t you play outside anymore?”
Taylor shrugged. “I didn’t feel like it.” Joyce detected the ripple of caution in her daughter’s voice when she spoke to her. It stung.
“Did...Dora play with you?” Joyce forced out. It was her way of making up for her earlier outburst, a way of declaring a truce.
Taylor nodded. “And she introduced me to her friends.”
Joyce grimaced. Great, just what she needs. More imaginary friends.
“Ooh, what are their names?” Brent asked.
“Eleggua and Oya.”
A spreading tumour of dread grew in the pit of Joyce’s stomach. The conversation between Taylor and Brent became muted, replaced instead by an urgent, incessant ringing in her ears, like alarm bells in her mind.
Where did she learn those names? A tremor rolled up her spine, as if someone had put an ice cube down the back of her neck. She glanced at the empty seat beside Taylor, and her mouth fell open at the spare plate of food that now looked partly consumed.