Karyn DeVries arrived at the Gibson home, Athena in tow, just a few minutes before 10am. The sisters were greeted by Linda at the door and invited inside to the sounds of Zoe, upstairs, exiting the hallway bathroom at the exact same moment as Sarah exited the master bathroom.
The two towel-wrapped cheerleaders, as if it was choreographed, made their way in unison to Zoe’s bedroom door from opposite ends of the hall and rushed inside to get dressed.
“They’ll just be a couple more minutes,” Linda told Karyn as Mike came out of nowhere and paused briefly to kiss Athena on the cheek before dragging her, giggling, into his bedroom.
“Cool, I’ll just wait down here for a bit.”
Warring sets of memories roiled in Karyn’s mind. Athena only laughed like that when Mike was around, one set of memories told her. But another set said that she barely knew who Athena was, and that Mike should be several years younger than her and called Mikey.
Ah, but this version of Athena seemed so happy. It was hard for Karyn to give preference to the set of memories she knew to be primary. What’s better than seeing your little sister happy?
Without warning, Karyn found herself ambushed by a little girl in a plain green tee shirt and baggy jeans. “We’re going shopping together!” the girl practically screamed. Her smile was like Athena’s: pure and infectious. Had Jon ever smiled like this?
“Yep,” Karyn returned the smile. “We just have to wait for Sarah and your sister to get ready.”
“Ugh,” Dawn threw her head backwards and drew the back of her hand across her forehead in a dramatic fashion. “Zoe always takes forever to get ready.”
Karen laughed again. It was so hard to see her melancholy old Jon in the face of this ball of energy. But she knew that this was the same person. “I’m sure they’ll be down soon.”
And as if on cue, that’s when Zoe and Sarah appeared at the top of the staircase, both in bike shorts and cropped camis under duster cardigans, with one difference: Zoe’s outfit from head to to was coal black, and Sarah’s was snow white.
Karyn groaned internally: those two had coordinated and she was going to look like a third wheel. And she was about to say precisely that, except Zoe beat her to the punch.
“Hey, no fair!” Zoe laughed. “You match!”
“Oh my god, they do!” Sarah agreed, to Karyn’s confusion.
But then Karyn looked down at herself: plain green tee shirt and baggy jeans. Just like Dawn. Maybe there was some of Jon hidden in there, after all?
“Hey, come on up to my room a sec,” Zoe called to Karyn. “Wait downstairs, Dawn. This is just a bit of big-girl talk. We’ll be out the door in like five minutes.”
“Well, okay,” the little girl mock-pouted. “But just five minutes! I’m setting a timer!”
