Fairies

She walks in the door and the fairies in her smile are hidden behind a tongue tasting bitterness.  There is a cat smell, thick and stale like a cloud of wet spores.  She’s in good spirits until walking into the house.  The front door: threshold of negativity.
     She plops her backpack on the kitchen table.  Lights dim and flicker above her head when she walks near.  Faulty electricity.  In the bathroom a pipe breaks through the soft wall and sprays her in the face.  Shrieking, cursing, she shoves toilet paper rolls into the hole and curses the prior tenants and the plumbers.  Negligence and winter freezes are a frustrating duo.
     She hears yelling.
     The stairs jut into the second floor and creak when her feet lick their carpet coated sweetness.  Light squeezes through the crack in the slightly opened door and she pushes it open with a gentle word and soft knock.  Its squeak covers the track and derails a train of frustration, collapsing and sliding into a joyous greeting.  The fairies in their mouths beat on porcelain bars and she hears ivory happiness chain down painful insinuations.  She says hello, how are you, that’s great, nice to see you again.  Each word a gag in her throat.  Spit in her eye.
     Well-practiced, they all keep their jaws closed tight, because fairies always say the things that are most difficult for us to hear.