The door clicked quietly, but it was a sound she would never, ever forget. It was the sound of something ending. He closed the door so many times, but he always returned after things had gotten too hard. Yet this time she knew it was different; he wouldn't be coming back. She watched from the corner as her mother's shoulders slumped once he was gone for good. The woman she always thought was beautiful, and always would, raised a hand to cover her mouth and put the other to her hip as she tried to compose herself. Her mother was always so strong.
"Momma...?" she called out, unsure.
Her mother turned around, looking terrified and surprised, as if she had forgotten someone else was in the house. "Oh, Ami..."
"What's wrong? Where did Daddy go?"
"Ami please, go back to playing. I need...uh, I need to go make dinner so be a good girl," her mother rambled, quickly wiping her eyes and disappeared into the next room.
She stood there for a moment, confused, before returning to her small, plastic play table. She sat back down, staring at the gift her father had given her this morning. He had presented her with a new packet of watercolors and paper to experiment with. She hadn't thought anything about the offering and thanked her unusually quiet father, not noticing anything was wrong or different.
Now she became infinitely sad, even though she couldn't completely understand why. She looked down at her half completely drawing, staring at the green trees, the quiet lake and churning waterfall. She loved the water. It reminded her of fun days at the pool with her father, calm nights when her mother would give her bubble baths and the cool summer nights when her family would stay up watching the rain falling down and counting the lightning strikes.
Together they taught her to not be afraid of it, to not be afraid of anything. Somehow she knew, things weren't going to be like that anymore.
Tears dripped from her eyes, mixing with the watercolor below. It distorted the images even more, and she wiped her hand across the paper angrily, smearing all the colors together. It was smudged and ruined, just how she felt inside. She couldn't remember anything else about that day, except the quiet sobs her mother tried to keep hidden as she cried herself to sleep that night.
She never touched the watercolors again, but kept them hidden beneath her bed. She found them one day after many years had come and gone, and found the distorted picture with them. She looked at it with a melancholy reverence before picking everything up and moving outside to the deck. There she recreated the same scene with a much steadier hand from years of learning and growing. She painted the green trees and the quiet lake, with the surging waterfall under the bright and perfect afternoon sun. Once finished she carefully cleaned up
before replacing the watercolors beneath her bed.
With confident strides she made her way to the kitchen and pinned the new drawing upon the fridge and stood back with a smile. She admitted to herself, painting wasn't a field she much improved in, but it was perfect for her. Nothing had been the same after that day, but things had also changed for the quiet and afraid person she had become.
In her pocket her communicator started to beep. Usagi's face appeared on the screen, all smiles and happiness. "Are you coming Ami-chan?"
"Of course, I'll be over in a few," she responded.
Casting one last glance she turned to leave, crumpled up the original and tossed it into the trash. The door shut soundly behind her, but it was not the end of something this time; it was the beginning of something beautiful.
