Part 50

A agitated knock at the door shattered the moment. As the words, "Who is it?" formed, Charlotte's mouth, and throat reemerged in the physical world.

"It's Jenny, I need to go."

Charlotte wanted to remind her daughter of the bathroom downstairs, but didn't. "Come in."

"It sure is steamy in here."

Getting back to the business of washing, Charlotte attacked her curly locks with some shampoo, and her fingers and scalp reappeared. She then ran her puffy scrubber over her legs, arms, before massaging her belly with gentle circles. Her skin tingled with the new citrus soap she had ordered from the Body Shop.

"Are you going to be in there all day?"

Charlotte thought to answer her daughter, yes, but instead asked why.

And simultaneously with flushing the toilet, Jenny gave her the answer she didn't want to hear, "Because Nana and Grandpa are ..... over." Her voice was muffled by the swirling water.

Charlotte nearly fell in the tub, trying to get her head out of the water stream and on the other side of the curtain. She had to make sure she had heard correctly. "Did you say Nana and Grandpa are coming over?"

"No, replied Jenny, this time the water from the faucet muffling her voice, "I said they are here."

On one dire exhalation she was all back in the physical world, and in no way prepared for what lay ahead.

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