Finally, someone put her out of her misery and opened the door.
"Hey! You made it!" It was Sophia, Neil's second wife.
Neil and Ingrid had been friends since their sophomore year in high school. She had been in love with him once, but then he married his high school girlfriend and she knew she was too late.
But she never stopped loving him.
Ingrid stepped over the threshold and Sophia took her coat and put in the nearly empty coat closet. The only company her coat had were three coat hangers and a floral hat box that sat on the top shelf.
"Thank you," said Ingrid. "Where would you like me to put my shoes?"
"Oh, I can take them. I'll put them in my room so the dog doesn't chew them," said Sophia.
As if on cue, a chubby pug ambled into the room sending shock waves through the floorboards. Ingrid bent down, resting on one knee and took the pug's face gently in both of her hands. His face looked even more squished than a normal pug's because of his excess fat. He was soft, but slightly greasy-feeling like the poor dog was in need of a bath pretty soon.
"What's his name?" asked Ingrid, not realizing that Sophia had left the room.
There was a slam upstairs-- Ingrid's heels hitting the floor of one of the bedrooms upstairs. The floorboards creaked above me as Sophia moved to the doorway of the bedroom and down the stairs again.
"What was that?" she asked.
"What's your dog's name?"
"Simba," said Sophia.
Ingrid tilted her head to look at Sophia.
"Do you mean like the lion cub from 'The Lion King?'" asked Ingrid.
Sophia nodded with evidence of mockery on her face.
"Susan thought Simba looked like an ugly cat," laughed Sophia.
"No doubt she got that from her father," said Ingrid, smiling.
"Don't let him hear you say that!" said Sophia. "Neil! Ingrid is here!"
There was the sound of thunder coming from upstairs-- more than one set of pounding footsteps. Ingrid knew that Neil had had one daughter with Sophia and a son with his former wife before she died. For some reason, the footsteps upstairs sounded too loud for two kids who had to be thirteen and fourteen years old respectively and one adult.
Ingrid's question was answered as two, three, four, five kids rounded the banister before Neil. She saw a shock of grey amongst his thick, dark locks. At a second glance, maybe his hair wasn't as thick as it once was...
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Author's Notes: Just something to get this blog rolling... I kind of like this concept for a story, so I might just come back to it sometime in the future.
