Chapter two: Siblings
At the age of three and five, my two children are more of a handful than Annie and I predicted they would be. Cile wants to do everything that I do. He wants to live and breathe in the same bubble of space as I do. Sometimes it's annoying because he has no sense of personal space, but I don't usually mind it because at least it keeps him somewhat out of trouble. My daughter is everything I wanted her to be. Just like Annie.
"Daddy!" she calls as Cile and I come back from fishing one afternoon. Annie's sitting in the small garden in our front yard picking out weeds and planting new flowers. Cali has a bright blue daisy in her hand as she runs toward me.
"Hey princess," I say as she runs right into my arms.
"Look. I found this flower. It's pretty." she says as she holds it up with a smile just as bright as the flower color.
"It is very pretty," I take it from her and tuck it behind her ear. "Just like you." I kiss her cheek as I swing her around to my hip and carry her to the front porch. I set her and the bag of fish I'm carrying down on the porch.
"Run on inside," I say to her and Cile as I make my way toward Annie. I lean down and kiss my wife. "Cile caught more fish than I did today." I tell her. I know my children are still standing on the front porch.
"That's surprising," Annie smiles. "He must be very proud."
"Like you wouldn't believe," I whisper to her. "He's pretending like it's not a big deal."
"Look Cali, fish!" Cali screams. She's never liked the feel of raw fish. I sigh.
"Cile, let your sister alone," I turn to make my way to the porch to them and watch as she attempts to run down the stairs away from her brother and the fish, and misses a step. Before I can catch her, she's fallen down the stairs and I hear a soft snap. That can't be good. Annie quickly comes running to the screams of our little girl as I scoop her into my arms.
After taking her to the hospital, we're informed that when she fell down the stairs, she landed on her arm wrong, and the snap I heard was the sound of her arm breaking. Annie doesn't take this news lightly. I immediately see her retreat into her mind; into her Hunger Games. Even though it's been five years since the end of the rebellion, and ten years since her Games, Annie's mind is still broken.
While Cile usually finds every way possible to mess with his mother, he has the same charm I have. I do what I can to talk Annie back into the present while we're waiting on the doctors to put a cast on Cali's arm, but she doesn't fully recover. Things that remind her the most of her District partner's beheading, pushes her the furthest into her mind, and take the most time to pull her back into the present. When the doctors bring Cali out to us, her arm is in a pink cast and she's laughing happily at the doctor.
"Look daddy!" she says, showing me her arm.
"It's pink." I tell her as she's transferred from one set of arms to another. She giggles.
"Is your wife alright?" the doctor asks. When I got up to take my daughter from him, Cile climbed up into Annie's lap. She's recovered enough to wrap her arms around him, and he kisses her cheek.
"I'm sorry mommy. I didn't mean to hurt Cali. It was an accident." I hear him say.
"She'll be alright," I tell the doctor, a smile playing on my lips.
"Put me down," Cali demands. I set her on her feet and she too makes her way to Annie. "Look mommy." She says. I follow and sit down in the chair beside Annie.
When Annie doesn't respond to Cali, the little girl grows impatient and starts hitting Annie's leg. I pick her up and set her in my lap. It's difficult explaining to a young child that their mother can't pay them attention.
"Cile, I think you need to apologize to your sister too." I tell him. He climbs out of Annie's lap and stands in front of me and Cali. He takes the hand of her good arm in his.
"I'm sorry Cali. I just wanted you to see the fish I caught today. I didn't mean to hurt you." He says. He leans forward and kisses her cheek too. She scrunches up her nose at this, but smiles as she shows him her cast. The fact that she's cheerful about it seems to upset him further than he already was.
"She's alright Cy." I ruffle his hair. "Why don't you take mommy's hand and let's go home."
Slowly, between Cile and I, by the time we get home, we manage to pull Annie mostly out of her own head. She sits down in the rocking chair with Cali as I take Cile to the kitchen to teach him how to clean the fish we caught and prepare it to be cooked for dinner.
~HG~HG~HG~
Both of my kids prefer it when I'm the one who tucks them in at night. They don't mind if Annie's there with me, sometimes they like that the best, but tonight, Cile has Annie wrapped around his finger just as much as Cali has me around hers. It makes me sad that my five year old has learned that sometimes his mommy isn't herself, and she needs the extra attention before she'll be back to herself. He knows that when she's had a really bad episode, like she did today, that she loves it and recovers faster when he spends time with her.
"Mommy, will you tuck me into bed tonight?" he asks, as the four of us make our way up the stairs for bed.
"You don't want daddy to?" she asks.
"No. I want you." He hugs her leg. She doesn't argue with him.
"Goodnight son," I say as he and Annie disappear into his room. I hear him tell me goodnight before she shuts his door.
"Alright princess, climb up into your bed." I follow Cali into her room. She struggles with having use of only one arm.
"Help me?" she asks, her lower lip sticking out in a pout because she can't do it herself. I put her in her bed and move to her dresser to find her nightgown and a hair tie to put her hair up with. Her favorite color is the same bright blue as the daisy she found earlier, so I pull out the blue nightgown over the pale yellow one that I bought her. She struggles to take her dress off, so I have to help her change clothes as well. Now that she's found that the pink cast on her arm puts a hindrance on being able to do things herself, she isn't as fond of it as she was when they put it on her at the hospital.
"I don't like you," she says to her arm as I pull the covers over her legs and move to brush her hair into a pony tail. I chuckle at this. "It's not funny daddy." She insists.
"I'm sorry sweetie." The fact that she broke her arm isn't funny, but her irritation with it is adorable.
"Can I take this off?" she asks.
"No, I'm afraid not. You have to keep it on until the doctors say you can take it off. It'll help your arm get better. If you take it off your arm will hurt again." I explain. She isn't happy with this answer, but she knows that it's the only option. When her hair has been put up to stay out of her face for the night, she lays down and cuddles up with her teddy bear. I wrap the blankets snugly around her shoulders and kiss her cheek.
"I love you my sweet baby girl," I tell her.
"I love you too daddy. I want a kiss from mommy too."
"Alright, I'll tell her to come in here. Goodnight." I flip on her nightlight as I flip off the overhead light, and I crack the door once I get into the hallway. Annie is already standing in the hallway waiting on me.
"She wants a kiss from you," I tell my wife. "Are you alright?" I ask, taking her shoulders as she goes to pass me. She sighs.
"I will be." She wraps her arms around me for a moment before Cali calls out that mommy is taking too long.
