It’d been a long day already and it wasn’t even that late in the afternoon. Like clockwork, once every two weeks, Josie went over to her mother’s house to pay the bills, clean, drop off some groceries, put her pills into the dispenser that she paid for, and check that her mother was in fact, still alive. Today, her mother had been in a mood and her youngest daughter got the brunt end of it. Just words that she could pretend to let go of, but that didn’t stop them from hurting. While she wanted nothing more than to be done with her mother, and she had been for a few months after she’d turned 18, she couldn’t abandon her. Not completely. Still, it took a toll on Josie and not just financially, but emotionally as well.
That’s why she’d gone to the park. Taking a seat on a swing and just letting her thoughts wander. She used to spend a lot of time at the park, especially a few months after Angelina had died. But, before that, she’d come here to get away from everything after Lucie had left for school, probably because some of her favorite memories with her sister, outside of the dance studio, were there. All the same, when she looked up as she swang gently forwards and backwards, she’d have expected to see her dead father more than the woman in front of her. Josie nearly fell off the swing in shock. “Lucie?” She hadn’t seen, or really spoken to, her sister in five years. Overwhelming emotions crashed over her in a tidal wave. Joy, anger, grief, relief, sadness, hurt, comfort, and so many more that she couldn’t quite identify. Her body wanted to move to embrace her older sister, but she froze once she stood from the swing, the hard plastic slapping the back of her legs. “Since when are you in Maywood again?”
Returning to Maywood hadn’t been something Lucie wanted to do, but it had been necessary. Truthfully, it hadn’t needed to be Maywood, it could have been anywhere else, as long as it was cheaper than New York and she could find gigs to perform music and earn money, while she still worked on getting a label signing. But something had drawn her back. Yes, she had a few friends here, but it was also her home once. It was where she grew up. It was where her family was. She had yet to visit her mother since returning, but more than anything, she wanted to see her sister. She had royally screwed up their relationship when Lucie had left her for the city and it pained her to think about it. Every single day she thought about visiting Josie, letting her know she was home and apologising for everything, but every single time she chickened out. It was as if she had to find the right words to say how sorry she was, but it was as if those words didn’t exist.
The day she returned, she had planned to visit Josie, she had found out where she worked and everything, but as soon as she approached, she had backed away just as fast. The guilt consumed her, so she decided not to think about it, getting drunk at night and hammering at her piano, much to her neighbours despair.
On her way to get some much needed coffee to cure the dull pounding in her head of her hangover, Lucie had cut through the park. She walked past the playground, just like she did most days; usually it was empty or there was a young child being pushed on the swing, but today there was someone very familiar sitting there. Usually, she would have disappeared as fast as she could, but today she didn’t. She opened the gate to the playground and walked over to the swingset where Josie was sitting. “Hi.” She breathed, offering a small smile. It wasn’t enough, but it was all she had. “Since...a little while.” There was no point lying and saying she had only just got back. It had been a couple months already. “How are you?” She asked feebly, knowing it was a lame question. Josie deserved so much more than that, but Lucie didn’t know what else to say.
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