July Exclusive - "Plans" - Part 4

“Hi honey,” Dad says, looking up from the stove when she enters the kitchen. Just 'honey'. 

As she stands there, her dress decorated with a red bow as if she's a birthday present, Cassie feels her chest tighten – is there a part of her that wants Dad to see what she sees? Does she want to go back to those simpler, sweeter times? 

But Dad doesn't use the nickname from all those years ago, when Cassie wore a dress like this for real. Of course he doesn't; why would he?

There’s no shock on his face, no renewed concern. “Feeling better?” he asks.

Cassie nods. “Shower helped.” She smiles. “Sorry about before, I’m better now.” She makes a calming gesture with her hands. “Totally Zen.”

Dad laughs and motions for Cassie to sit at the table.

Cassie takes her seat. The pancakes aren’t a surprise. Neither is the butter, or the bottle of Aunt Jemina syrup.

It’s the pink, plastic plate with a smiling Minnie Mouse in the center. It’s the matching utensils; a little pink fork and spoon.  There’s even a plastic cup with Minnie’s face on it, filled with milk.

Cassie catches her breath, and she doesn’t say a word. She looks in silence at Minnie, who’s sporting a pink bow in her hair. She doesn’t moan at the sight of circular letters, spelling out a word that she can’t read.

Dad sits down across from her. He sips from his mug of coffee. He makes no mention of the Cassie’s dress or dining ware. “Hungry?”

Good question. How could she be? It’s all she can do to keep from yelling. She wants more than anything to emote. She could produce noisy tears, she could release rapturous giggles. Because this is crazy.

It’s the sight of chocolate chips provokes a squeal of sudden, unexpected delight. “My favorite!” She has known for the longest time, for forever, that her father chills the chocolate chips in the refrigerator ahead of time, so that they don’t melt to nothing in the batter. Without thinking, she rubs her stomach in a circular fashion and produces the sweet compliment she first said as a little girl. “You make the best pancakes, Daddy.”

Too much. Too cutesy. Dad will give her the worried look he had earlier.

But in fact, he barely seems to notice. He nods modestly. “I wouldn’t say so myself,” he says, “but I’ve heard the rumors.” He winks at his daughter. “Think you can manage two?”

Cassie nods. Of course, she can. Because she’s an adult. The bounce leaves her voice, and she doesn’t say anything but a soft “Thank you” when Dad puts the pancakes on the Minnie Mouse plate. She doesn’t say anything but “Mmm” when he adds a pat of butter and a generous serving of syrup, and finishes it off with a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

He’s doing that for me, Cassie asks herself, because he’s being kind, or because he thinks I’ll spill?

If Dad offers to cut up the pancakes, that will be a step too far. That will be a moment for Cassie to cry out, bring the ceiling down on their heads.

He doesn’t make the offer.

Cassie is careful to eat properly, using her manners, somehow managing to cut the pancake with her little spoon. She lifts each bite to her mouth with care,  she sips daintily from her cup, because a single drop of syrup or milk on her dress and surely Dad will tell her she needs a bib, and it will be a joke but it will be too much.

Oh, he wouldn’t do that. Surely.

They eat breakfast, Dad having seconds while Cassie works on her first serving, determined to finish her food, even as she wants to cry out, Don’t you see what I’m wearing? Don’t you see my plate? Because as the seconds tick by, Cassie becomes convinced that it won’t be a suitcase that Dad brings downstairs. It will be her Wonder Pets backpack. There will be a pack lunch inside, and a promise to be there to pick her up after her first day.

Dad glances at his watch. “Sara Beth will be here in a half-hour.” He smiles. “Sure you want to go to the airport? I could book you in at the princess spa.”

Cassie laughs with relief. The airport is still real. The plan is a grown-up one. It’s just what she sees that’s somehow regressed. “Airport, thanks,” she says. “I’m excited, but I’m calm too, you know?” She smiles at her father. “I can’t wait to get there and explore.”

Dad nods. “I bet.” He nods again. “Big day, big day.” He smiles. “But I know you’re gonna be just fine.”

Cassie nods right back. It’s almost tolerable that she’s seeing the kiddy stuff, as long as Dad doesn’t know about her state of mind. She’s got two weeks in Paris after all to fix this, Sara Beth can help! She almost feels hungry, and manages to finish her second pancake, revealing the Disney pattern beneath.

She looks at the lettering on the plate, and her eyes widen.

She blurts, “Fah…bow…lous!” And then she clamps her hand over her mouth.

Dad stares at her. “What’s that honey?”

Fah-bow-lous. According to the lettering on the plate, how Minnie Mouse feels about her pink hair bow.

Cassie’s cheeks burn red. Her pride at being to read the word, and a pun at that, lasted a second or two. Her shame at yelling it, like an over-excited six-year-old, and at a plate that only she can see, is lasting longer.

“You okay?” Dad tilts his head at her. “Feeling like before, honey?”

The girl shakes her head. “No, Dad, I’m…I just remembered a joke.”

Dad raises an eyebrow. “Wanna share it?”

“No. It’s a…” She shrugs. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“Gen Z,” says Dad, as if that explains it.

Cassie continues to blush, and she’s sure that she has syrup on her chin, certain that she’s made the kind of mess she made thirteen years ago on her first day of kindergarten, but when she touches her face, there’s nothing to clean.

Breathe. Stay calm. At least she can read again. Or at least she can read a little bit. Perhaps, her recovery has already begun. In which case, will she suddenly stop seeing herself in the sailor dress, or will it fade away in time?

“Go upstairs, check you’ve got everything packed up,” Dad says, interrupting Cassie’s theorizing. “I’ll clean up.”

Cassie smiles at her father. “Thanks for breakfast.” She finishes her milk and then gets up, plants a kiss on his cheek, and then goes to her room.

The closet is still open, and the rack of childish dresses remain.

Cassie stands in front of it, squeezes her eyes shut, counts to ten.

She opens her eyes. Dammit. No change.

She goes to the nightstand, picks up her passport and phone. She’s got the large Samsonite to check in, and a smaller one for carry-on. Matching luggage because she’s a grown-up. When she looks at the case, she wonders why they haven’t transformed as well, into one of those kiddy cases with room for a stuffie or blankie.

She’d like to ask Mom how it happened for her, but it’s been years since her mother could have answered that question.

There’s a buzzing in Cassie’s hand. She looks at her phone, and an instinctive swiped finger on the screen is enough to answer the call.

Sara Beth appears on camera.

“Bonjour!” her friend says.

“Bonjour,” echoes Cassie. For a moment, Cassie imagines that Sara Beth will be dressed the same as her, but then she shakes her head. Why would that be?

Indeed, from the head and shoulders, Sara Beth looks normal. But she does widen her eyes at Cassie.

“That’s what you’re wearing?”

Cassie feels her chest tighten. “How do you mean?”

Sarah Beth shrugs. “Loving the red, white and blue, very tricolore. But the bow? Comme en enfant, n’est-ce pas?”

Cassie feels her nose wrinkle in confusion. “Huh?”

Sarah Beth rolls her eyes. “You look like you’re twelve or something. If that.”

This time, thanks to the sweet syrup from breakfast that coats Cassie’s tongue, she can swallow. “You see it,” she whispers. “You see the sailor dress.”

Her friend nods. “Well…yeah. I mean…” She laughs. “Are you feeling okay?”

Cassie shakes her head. “I thought I was imagining it!”

“What do you mean? It’s not that bad, Cassie. A little young, but you can pull it off.”

For a moment, Cassie feels the urge to lift up the skirt of her dress, show off her training pants and cut the reassuring tone from her friend’s voice.

Instead, she simply pans her phone camera to show the contents of the closet.

“Oh,” says Sara Beth. “Oh, wow.”

“That’s what I had to choose from,” Cassie replies, and she can feel a tightness in her throat and in her chest. There’s a weight in her bladder, the breakfast milk suddenly making its presence known.

“Why?”

Cassie brings the camera back to her face. “I don’t know. They weren’t there last night. I put this dress on because I thought I was just imagining things.”

“What? Why would you-“

“Because of Mom!” Cassie cries out, and the words come out in a rush as she whispers urgently, “Because I woke up and I can’t read, I can’t read the letters or numbers, and Dad says that’s how it started with Mom, with her seeing weird stuff, and forgetting how to read, and so I lied to my dad and said I was okay, and he didn’t see the dress, and there was a Minnie Mouse plate for my pancakes and Dad didn’t say anything about that either so I just-“

“Holy crap,” Sara Beth says. She looks pale. “Don’t you see?”

“What?”

“It’s not you, it’s your Dad. He’s doing something.” Her mouth hangs open, and then she exclaims, “Oh, God. What if he did the same thing to your mom?" 

Suddenly, Sara Beth covers her mouth with her free hand. She stares over Cassie’s shoulder.

Cassie’s still holding the phone when she turns around to find her father standing in the doorway.

To be completed...