(Inspiration 3.5) Late

Sitting on the edge of the cool bathtub, elbows resting on her knees, she delicately twirled a lock of soft, shining hair around two fingers.  Watching the plush, yellow ducks bob their bright orange bills up and down on the green, shaggy rug, Courtney remembered the small pond in Granna's back yard.  

The last time Courtney made her way through the woods to dip her toes in the pond, she was singing show tunes with her baby sister, Lizzy.  Sitting beside Lizzy on the hollow log, Courtney had used a stick to stir their reflections together in the water.  The circular ripples distorted their smiling faces, and Lizzy's short, blond hair had become intertwined with Courtney's long, blond mane.  Courtney missed her sisters, Lizzy and Jayme, and she had been thrilled to receive the over-sized, purple envelope (purple was Jayme's favorite color) in the mail containing the sketch of Courtney and Lizzy singing by the pond.  Jayme had followed close behind that day, seizing the opportunity to capture the moment through her quiet art.  

Courtney's heart ached as she thought of her sisters.  She had been at Granna's kitchen table to cheer on Jayme before her first day of eighth grade in the new neighborhood, and she had been there to walk Lizzy to school to meet her new fifth grade teacher and peers.  Although the move to college had put miles of distance between them, Courtney called and wrote to her sisters daily.  The shy Jayme, now a class officer at school, surprised her every day with new stories of middle school life.  Next year, she would enter high school.  And, baby Lizzy was growing faster by the minute.  In fact, she was no longer a baby at all.

Now, wrapped in her soft, terry cloth robe, and curling her toes within the softness of her duck slippers, Courtney's eyes shifted slowly to the round, ticking wall clock.  It seemed to slow to a stop as she read the sign on the window of the white, plastic indicator.  Either the clock had stopped ticking, or her heart pumped so loudly that it drowned out all sounds around her.  Courtney faintly heard the beating of a second, smaller heart as she grasped her yellow cell phone to call her mother.  

"Courtney?" A groggy voice continued, "It has been two weeks.  I know you've been busy at school and work, but..."

"Hi, Mom.  Sorry to call so late.  Can we talk?"