It is the soft ticking of the living room clock that makes Adeline realize the house is too quiet.

She has spent the last thirty minutes engrossed in front of her computer, looking at numbers on an excel spreadsheet, in a futile attempt to make the numbers make sense. They weren’t and she didn’t know what else to do about it. She moves things around several times, cross referencing data from other sources she has opened on another computer monitor, hoping something will finally click, and so far nothing has.

Adeline feels exasperation slowly crawling up her spine like a tiny bug which makes her unconsciously wiggle around just to get it off her.

She hates this job. She wishes often she has the courage to just quit. Her fantasies are always the same. She would move somewhere warm and exotic. Somewhere like Bora Bora.

Tick, tick, tick.

The sound of the clock is light, soft, almost like an aberration.

Adeline’s brow furrows and she continues staring at her computer screen.

Tick, tick, tick, it repeats, breaking into her attempt to refocus her mind.

With a startling clarity, Adeline thinks, IT IS SO QUIET.

She pauses with her right hand just above her mouse, listening more intently. The air in her office is a little frigid. The hair on her arms rises up akin to little soldiers, ready to guard her body against the cold as her skin tightens, goosebumps appearing like tiny marbles underneath.

The cold draws her attention to the sound of the heater in her basement humming. The continuous dripping sound of the water slowly falling down the side of her roof as the melting snow adds to the chorus. The tympany of the wind chime hung up by her front porch clinking slowly and melodiously, reaches her ears. An indication that a gentle breeze is present today, not the angry gale of last night which made the wind chimes sound like the discordant song of a drunk orchestra.

Adeline can hear all this because her house is always alive with ear-splitting screams of excitement but most times frustration is...silent.

“Where is she and what is she doing?” Adeline wonders.

She doesn’t want to go to the living room to find out. Not yet. She has to make sure she reveals herself only when absolutely necessary.

She continues to listen, trying to breath very slowly and quietly.

She hears the electric buzz of her refrigerator, ice falling into the receptacle in the freezer.

Clonk, clonk.

“Shit, something is wrong”. Adeline curses.

She knows when it is this quiet, her daughter is up to no good. Possibly doing something pleasantly atrocious.

Adeline groans and gets up from her chair to go find her two years old walking tornado. She takes a peek into the living room and true to her suspicions, Racine is nowhere to be found.

Just as she is about to turn around and make her way up the stairs, she hears a very faint scratching sound coming from her pantry.

She opens the door gently.

Sitting on the floor covered in the white dust of fine all purpose flour is Racine. She looks up at Adeline with her big brown eyes, a wide grin punctuating her face. The joy she exudes is stupefying.

Instead of being cross at her, Adeline surprises herself by sitting down next to her daughter in the cramped space to have a little reprieve. She takes a mental image of this moment and locks it in the vault of her memory bank.