I begrudgingly agreed to go next door with my father for the remainder of that bitter birthday. The temperature matched my disposition as we scampered through the cold.
Diane and my father babbled endlessly. I peered at Shannie over my coffee cup. She stared at Diane and my father, her lanky hair tumbling over her face and slouched shoulders. Her skin, sporting its mid-winter pallor, reminded me of non-dairy creamer. I got up and dumped the rest of my coffee in the sink. Shannie was riveted to our parent's conversation, her head shifting back and forth between them. Silently, I left the kitchen.
In the darkened living room, I peered out of the bay window down Cemetery Street. Streetlights illuminated the street. Each successive light lower than the previous until they appeared to rest on the street. I was admiring the sentinels of the night when Shannie slithered into the room.
I waited for her to speak. Her eyes scratched and clawed at my back. I refused to turn around. I refused to break my silence. I was convinced that if I did, I would never see my mother again. I wasn't going to let my mother down without a fight. In the kitchen our parent's laughed.
She moved behind me, her steps in sync with the Grandfather clock. Her breath tickled the nape of my neck. She drew a breath as to speak - she sighed and stepped away. I continued my vigil, mesmerized by the occasional vehicle traversing Cemetery Street. "She's not coming back," Shannie finally said from a corner of the room.
Fuck you Shannie, I didn't say. On Cemetery Street, a shadow kicked a telephone pole, knocking out the street light.
"If you ask me, she's doing you guys a favor."
"I didn't ask you," I murmured.
"What's that?" she asked.
"I didn't ask you," I repeated louder.
"That's what I thought you said," she replied. The shadow, now closer, kicked a second pole, killing its light.
"Up yours Shannie," I mumbled as I turned around, startled to find her looming behind me, leering through dangling hair.
"Look on the bright side," she said "If death comes in threes, you only have one more."
I turned my gaze out of the window. "She isn't dead Shannie!"
"May as well be," Shannie sneered. She returned to the kitchen. Unable to reply, I did what I do best; I watched. My palms were in a cold sweat as I watched the shadow approach the telephone pole between my house and the Ortolan's. The shadow kicked the pole - blackening the world at the end of Cemetery Street. The shadow was Count, on his way home from his own tryst with Marcy Lucas.