Painted Eggs
"Luka. Wake up." Cold toes brush the sinews of his calf, tense in the early chill, and he groans, burying his head further into the pillow. "Luka. We have to do the eggs." Still, his head goes under the covers, not ready to surrender to morning.
"Jasna, ljubav, please." He's bargaining with a five-year-old, on his knees, pleading with her as a wicked smile spreads over her face and she shakes her head, curls slapping at his cheeks. "Jasna, just put it on. Please. Put on the dress."
"No," she crows, lording over him. "It's itchy and I won't wear it and if you make me I'll tell Baka."
She knows she can hold this over his head and it only increases the pounding in his brain. The rakija last night had not been a good idea, but no, idiot he was, he'd gone with the others anyhow, the others who didn't have wives or children or mothers-in-law who preferred their granddaughters to Luka. He can already hear the scolding he'll get for putting the little thing in such an impractical garment, never mind that Danijela had been the one who chose it. "Jasna, please. You'll look so pretty in it."
"I don't want to look pretty."
She always wants to look pretty. He's fairly certain that she's only doing this to affirm to herself that she can get away with murder when it comes to her father and that she really does want the dress, and the bows, and the hat, as well. "Ljubav, please. What do you want from me? What do I have to do?" He's a grown man begging a child a fifth of his size.
"I want an egg. A painted one."
"I'll buy you a painted egg, ljubav. Two, I'll buy you two. Just put on the dress."
"I want Mama to dress me."
He wonders why it is that the sweet little thing turns on him like this now and then. Maybe it's her mother who taught her, or her grandmother. Or maybe her bastard of an uncle, Luka thinks. It would be like Niko to conspire against him just to see him reduced to tears in front of a five-year-old. "Mama is dressing Marko. I'll help you dress, then Mama will do your hair."
"In plaits."
"Yes, in plaits. With ribbons."
"Purple ribbons?"
"Yes, ljubav." Luka manages to maneuver his daughter's arm through the sleeve of the dress. "Purple ribbons, just like you asked."
Jasna holds her painted eggs, one in each hand, as they drive, calmly humming to the tune of "The Easter Parade" and after an hour of the same verse over and over Luka wonders who taught her that and thinks very bad thoughts toward them. Danijela says nothing and he knows it's because of how late he came home last night and how badly he stunk of alcohol, but it wasn't really his fault that Dusan had tripped over his own feet and spilled his drink on Luka, now was it? And besides, the headache was punishment enough, and so he inches his fingers into his wife's palm and tries to earn himself some forgiveness. Happy wife, happy mother-in-law.
A stranger would think that the woman only saw her grandchildren a few times a year from the way she descends on Jasna and Marko, though it was only last Thursday. Luka would know this because she arrived unannounced, how she got there was still a mystery, threw Luka out of his own house, and set about cleaning the entire apartment top to bottom and teaching Jasna to make Easter decorations using his handkerchiefs as material. When she sees Luka, she harrumphs and shakes her head sadly at Danijela. "He's so skinny! Hasn't he been eating?"
Luka decides not to mention that he's standing right there, or that, yes, he has been eating, more often than he'd like because Danijela cooks when she's nervous and she's been nervous lately. Two nervous chickens and a nervous cake and endless pots of nervous stew. But Danijela just laughs. "He and Marko are the same. They eat everything and weigh nothing."
Marko gives a toothy grin of affirmation and tries to make a break for it, and Luka knows that his son wants to go chase the chickens, he can see it in his eyes, but Danijela's firm hand prevents him from creating any incidents of animal cruelty. Luka empathizes with his son. He doesn't like those chickens, either. Jasna dances around her grandmother's feet, showing off her painted eggs, and beams at Luka when she announces that her Tata bought them for being such a good girl and he can see Danijela trade looks with her mother. "Tata, tell her! Tell Baka what a good girl I was!"
He weighs the pros and cons of admitting that he bribed his daughter into behaving and decides that he'll look like less of a fool if he goes along. "A very good girl, that's right, ljubav." This is why he keeps falling into this, into bribery, because he'd rather placate a little girl he adores than incur the wrath of her grandmother.
Jasna's smile could light the whole town for a month as her grandmother kisses her soundly, once on each cheek, and then takes Marko from Danijela and carries him inside. Danijela shrugs and gives a little laugh, well aware that Luka lives in fear of her mother, and follows, and Jasna looks around at the chickens and then at the eggs still clutched in her hands and back to the chickens and now to her father and screws up her face in thought. "Tata?"
"Yes, ljubav?" Luka squats down to see his daughter at eye-level.
"How come Baka's chickens don't lay painted eggs?"
"Luka," comes the whisper, again, and this time fingers trace their way through a maze of hair, nails gently tickling his scalp. "You promised your son an Easter egg hunt and I'm not dealing with the fallout when you don't deliver."
The response is a groan and a strong pair of arms and Abby is now incapable of waking him both because he's awake already and because she can neither move nor speak given what his hands and mouth are doing. He draws back eventually, pleased with himself at having quieted her so thoroughly, and pulls on a pair of shorts. "I'm going, I'm going."
"Maybe I should tape a cotton ball to the back of your pants so it can be more authentic."
He raises an eyebrow. "You just wait and see what the Easter bunny put in your basket."
She giggles and slides out of bed after him, and he takes her hand in his and they tiptoe down the hall, down the stairs, to where two dozen eggs have dried on little mushy paper stands overnight. Luka had not understood this method of decorating, and looking at the eggs lined up on the counter he notes that his look worse than his son's, because he had wanted to try all the colors and had ignored Abby when she tried to tell him it would just turn the eggs brown. Joe's eggs look more like they went through a confetti hurricane than anything, but at least they aren't brown, and he has to smile at Abby's eggs, because this has to be the most domestic thing she's ever done and even though her eggs look superior in comparison, they still look like someone threw paint at a bunch of eggs. He decides that he likes that their eggs aren't perfect.
He hides them around as Abby tries to cram all of what he bought into Joe's Easter basket and announces that no toddler should ever eat that many chocolate bunnies, and she's going to save them all the trouble by making a personal sacrifice. She smiles and holds out the now-beheaded chocolate rabbit to him as he crawls out from behind the sofa.
"You murdered the rabbit, Abby."
"It lived a good life. Here, finish it off."
When she brings Joe downstairs he smiles and shakes his head because she's put him in the god-awful pajamas that Maggie sent, with a little bunny tail on the bottom and paw prints on the feet. And he has to admit that Joe makes a pretty good rabbit, hopping around the living room and laughing and Abby hops right along with him. "Come on, Luka. Hop with us."
So he does, he hops, right onto one of the eggs. There's a moment of silence
when he realizes what he's done, and then Joe claps his hands together gleefully and points to the egg and announces he's found another.
"No, no. I think that one's Daddy's."
"My egg." Joe points to the bits of colored eggshell now ground into the carpet. "Daddy's eggs are brown."
"Well…" Abby looks at him helplessly and he just shrugs and grins at her because not only does he not understand how this game is scored, but he doesn't care because he thinks he might break from how happy he is right now.