The Missing Smile

Grace allowed the cool of the morning to seep into her while she watched her mother's legs shunt back and forth on their way to the car. The V8 engine began to thunder out its sonorous tones, and Grace closed her eyes, hoping to capture them in her memory. The engine dwindled away, and Grace jumped when Stanley, the housekeeper, touched her shoulder, though this same sequence of events had played out each day for 4 years. She turned her head; almost owl-like in the way she turned her head without moving. Stanley looked right into her amber eyes, and he broke into a smile of affection and pity. This, however, was lost on Grace, who seemed to stare right through him, her eyes intent upon some other thing in the distance.
"Perhaps it is time we got you dressed, Miss?"
"Yes...perhaps it is…” Grace’s mind began to wander, as it did everyday, through the corridors of the vast house, and as her mind fixed on the kitchen, a tear welled in her eye. Stanley, as he was so used to by now, steeled himself before looking again at the little girl.
“Come, Miss.”

*

The washing machine whirled away silently in the corner of the kitchen, but Grace knew it was on because the assorted items gathered on the table wobbled uncontrollably. As she watched the items on the table, her mother came into the kitchen, the fact she was even now driving to work forgotten. She walked over to the fridge, barely aware of the little girl sitting at the table.

She did not smile.

Pouring herself a glass of milk, she drank deeply. So engaged was Mother in her drinking that she failed to notice how close to the table she was, and Grace grinned as her mother tripped up. She stumbled and the glass of milk smashed on the floor. Shards of glass flew everywhere, and one entered Mother's foot. Mother left, and all that was left of her was a puddle of Milk laced with red liquid. Grace’s eyes did not leave the door. Punctual as ever, Daddy strolled into the kitchen. To Grace, he seemed to blend into the background as if every inch of him, from his perfectly cut suit to his bulging pockets, belonged in the kitchen. At this point, he started rummaging through his pockets, emptying their contents onto the table; lint, coins, keys, buttons, paper, a knife, a jewel. When he saw the shiny rock hit the table, he smiled and picked it up. He stared into it. Grace could not look away when she saw how he stared into the jewel’s depths, immune to its blazing centre where another person would have been overwhelmed with awe.
He suddenly seemed satisfied, because he deposited the ruby in his breast pocket with a quick flick of his wrist. Grace frowned, but Daddy did not seem to notice, and he started to put things back in his pocket. When he picked up the knife, he suddenly looked Grace straight in the eye. He came to her swiftly, knelt down to her level and spoke in an intense whisper.

“Will you come a walk with Daddy?”

She accepted without hesitation. He rose and left the room while She drifted along in her Daddy’s wake.

The hall was warmly lit, with the occasional painting or antique interrupting the pleasant cream coloured walls. Grace tilted her head to one side as she considered her Daddy’s meek demeanour. He glanced back for a second to make sure she was following him, before he turned up the stairs. He was already halfway up before Grace started to make the climb. Grace frowned as her father seemed to fly up the stairs at an amazing velocity. He seemed to fly away from her but she did not let this faze her. She continued upwards.

At this point, Stanley emerged from a door at the bottom of the stairs, having just entered that very door so that he would not get in the little girl’s way. He looked up in time to see Grace wandering up the stairs with her head tilted to one side, looking ghostlike in her tattered dress. He watched her as she wandered down the corridor at the top of the stairs, and his old face wrinkled with grief when he heard the wretched girl giggle when she saw her svelte father trip over a loose piece of carpet. He began to ruminate over his past four years working in this house, how he had been required to get used to the girl’s daily routine, how he had steadily grown to despair for the little girl ever letting go of this last memory of her father. In all of his years, Stanley had seen many tragedies; the evils of war; the anguish of watching a loved one die in your arms; the pains of torture. But he had never seen anything as heart-breaking as Grace. He wondered if he had lowered the stairs to the attic today in vain, but he knew better than to dwell on such things. The old man steeled himself again before heading off to the living room, where he could consume himself in his duties. And if that failed, Madam always kept an ample supply of whisky in her drinks cabinet.

*

Grace had arrived at the end of the upstairs hall and she raised her eyes to the shadow of her father. He had started to climb the stairs to the attic, which had already been lowered for her arrival there by the ever faithful Stanley. Daddy moved up the stairs fluidly, and she hurried after him, not wanting to be left behind. She had been expecting some hidden space, but instead Grace was greeted by a terrible stench, one she had encountered 1468 times before, and yet to her it seemed as though she had never had the misfortune of smelling any thing so utterly putrid. She looked at her Daddy, who was staring maniacally at her and beckoning with his finger. In spite of herself, Grace wandered to her father, not wishing him to think less of her. He wandered to a large shape dwelling in the far corner of the attic, and Grace almost ran to be beside him. Daddy was fumbling with a padlock when Grace arrived, and she saw that the padlock was attached to a large, leather chest. Unlocking it, he threw the lock aside and with an otherworldly shriek, he threw the chest open.

Inside the chest lay a woman whose face was contorted into an eternal scream.

Daddy looked insanely from the corpse to her, before he took her hand and his face returned to that charming smile she knew so well. Grace had jumped but she did not scream; instead she merely looked at him. It was he whom she knew would never hurt her, he whom she loved with all her heart. They rested in each other’s contented silence awhile, both of them considering each other with a great intensity, one which anyone else would have found frightening to behold. He asked if she knew who the woman was. With a small but certain shake of her head, Grace told Daddy she did not. Neither, it transpired, did he. They sat in each other’s contented silence before Grace asked her father the one question she knew no one could answer but him:

“Do you know where Mother’s smile is, Daddy?”
“…It’s missing.”
When Grace looked him in the face, she saw something she had not seen since yesterday. A look of farewell.
“I have to leave this place, Grace.”
“For how long?”
“Forever. I shall never return.”
Grace looked at him again, and he told her exactly what she wanted to know. He told her how to get her mother’s smile back. He handed her a knife, and with a kiss on the forehead he was gone.
“I will miss you, Daddy.”
She swayed on the spot where her father had left her. When she wanted to, she looked down at the face of the woman, an eternal scream hidden by the eroding veils of time. A V8 engine in the distance, and Grace smiled; perhaps tonight, she would find what she was looking for.

*

In the evenings, Grace was both restful and curious. Her mother was the only thing in her life which changed from day to day, a variable. As ever, Grace stood with her hands behind her back while she waited for her mother to enter the room. Stanley caught a glimpse of the girl from a doorway, and wasn’t surprised at how the girl looked almost statuesque, waiting for something to happen with the patience of a python waiting to strike its prey. He moved off to the kitchen, where he knew there would be a puddle of milk waiting for him.
As Stanley was moving towards the kitchen, Mother entered the living room. She strolled to the drinks cabinet, and fixed herself a quick nightcap. Having downed this, she made another before sitting down on the couch which ran adjacent to the fireplace. Her eyes fell upon the oriental rug on the floor.She did nto move. Her hair cascaded down over her face, and she seemed totally oblivious to the fact that Grace even existed. Tears fell freely from Mother’s eyes. Grace tilted her head to the side, curious, reminded for a second of the items wobbling on the table in the kitchen. Grace always watched her mother with complete fascination, watched her as she drank, cried and shrieked her way through the evenings. 11pm, time for Bed. Mother’s hands stayed clasped around her drink. The liquid within was vibrating. She put the glass down before reaching under the sofa where a knife seemed to materialize in her hand.

“Mother?”

“Yes, Gracey?” Mother looked up to find Grace standing there, her face illuminated by the firelight. A face never of anguish, a face of curiosity, a face of piercing scrutiny. Mother looked into Grace’s eyes, as amber as the whisky and yet not so. While the whisky was a solemn comfort, Grace’s eyes were almost disturbing in their intensity, painful to consider. The fire played on Grace’s face, and played on her eyes and hair, a danse Macabre. Here a soft shadow, there a sudden flicker.

*

Stanley sat in the kitchen; now clean of milk and wobbling lint. The worry that filled his mind was whether he dared to disturb Madam in order to ask to retire for the evening. The human body can only function properly if it is well rested, and Stanley was far from that. He rose, and headed through the house towards the living room. Every piece of furniture he passed carried a memory; a painting that Grace had ripped from the wall as it did not belong in her daily memories; a phone table Madam had broken in a drunken rage which Stanley had been asked to repair. The old man did not dwell on these thoughts, as he did not wish to be cruel to himself. The memories made him tired. With fresh resolve, he came to the foyer which led onto the living room. He saw the flickering of the fire before he saw the couch slide into view, along with the image of Madam and her daughter. Grace stood, beautiful and meek, with her eyes closed, silhouetted by the fireplace, ghostly pale beneath a veil of blood which coated her nightgown, before her mother, dear Ms Susan, who was lying in her finest suit, her face covered with a ghastly, almost humorous smile. Stanley looked at the little girl, whose eyes opened and bent toward him, their intensity immense and the fire still playing upon them. He steeled himself for the last time in his long life, and with a calm around the dead that only old age and war can bring, he went to Grace.
“Come, Miss.”

*

Grace stood alone, listening intently as the screaming of the asylum fell to a dull murmur, a ripple in her pool of calm. She had her eyes clasped shut, trying to remember where she had placed all of those captured moments, hoping to find solace in their depths. She listened, hoping beyond hope for what she wanted. Then, a distant rumbling, which she mistook for a memory. When the engine told her that it did not have the same reassuring thunder of the V8, her eyes flew open, and she started to hurl every obscenity she had ever heard at the door of her cell, her limbs flailing as much as her restraints would allow. The turnkey steeled himself before turning to gaze at the morning sun. A frown spread across his face, as he lamented the departure of his previous wards. They had been very obedient.

Sometimes, change can be the bane of us all.