Chapter 4 – Hell Hath No Fury…
I dropped everyone off then ran by a store to pick up a new car seat for my truck and got it installed before I went to pick up Esryl from daycare. This was going to be the best part of having a vehicle of my own. I got to pick up Esryl and drop her off, without having to wait for one of my griping siblings to take me to get her. Or have them tell me no and insist she should have to wait, sometimes until really late, for one of our parents to get free to go pick her up. I had come to regret my previous denial of a car for this very reason more than once.
I was greeted by my little shadow the minute I walked in the door of the center. "Bewa! Come wook wat I maked!" she said excitedly, grabbing my hand and dragging me into her classroom. She was seriously dwarfed by all the other kids her age in the room, but she was just as feisty as any of them.
I grinned down at her and grabbed her up into my arms. "Okay, munchkin, show me what you made." She pointed me toward where she had been creating a construction paper picture on the little classroom table with glitter and glue.
"I gwood da spawkas!" she exclaimed proudly, showing me her sparkly glue and glitter-covered hands.
"I see that. Are you part of the picture?" I asked her, tickling her belly.
"No! I no pichuh, I Essie!" she giggled. She really was adorable.
I promised her we could finish her masterpiece at home later, knowing we had plenty of glitter and glue. I was so proud of her. She had been making actual shapes on the paper, not just smudges and smears of random glitter-covered dribbles. My girl was smart!
We stopped by the grocery store on the way home, and I pulled out my long list, filling three of their huge shopping carts to the brim. With as many people as we fed around our place, Emmett counting for three by himself, it took lots of food to stock the house. The manager of the store knew me by name and always called for a couple of helpers to push the other two carts for me. That was the least they could do for one of their best customers, I reasoned.
Grocery shopping was hard work, and none of my siblings liked to do it, because the even harder job of getting it into the house and putting it away went along with it. They all liked to eat just fine, mind you, and came running when it was all prepared.
I had gotten shopping down to a science now, so I just went and did it and got it over with, and I'd even gotten proficient with using coupons and working the sales. Elliott had given me my own bank account and credit card two years ago, since I now did all the family shopping. He and mom had agreed it was just easier that way. He refused Alice one, however, until she learned some discipline, siting her inability to control herself in a retail environment. Fortunately, I didn't have that problem.
Esryl babbled all the way home about her day, and once there, we brought everything in and started putting it away. Esryl might have been small, but she could stack cans and cereal boxes on the bottom pantry shelves with the best of them. Alice and Emmett heard us in the kitchen and came down, scrounging for snacks. They started rummaging through the bags, making a huge mess, when I snapped.
"You know, instead of just digging through the bags and scattering everything all over the floor, you could actually start loading the stuff into the pantry!" I glared at them.
"Nah, looks like you've got it covered," Alice smirked, heading back to her room with a bag of chips, Emmett doing the same with a box of fruit snacks he had snagged. I looked at the carnage all over the kitchen floor left in their wake and let out a small scream.
"Argh! Seriously? You guys suck!"
I heard giggling and whispering, as they completely ignored me. Jerks!
"One of these days, you guys could actually help me with dinner, too, you know!" I yelled after them, completely irritated. If it weren't for needing to feed Esryl, and wanting to help mom and Elliott out, I wouldn't bother with making enough dinner for their lazy butts, too. If I didn't, though, they'd make a huge mess in the kitchen and do a half-assed job of cleaning it up, if they even bothered, so I just went ahead and did it to save myself the aggravation.
I knew I could have complained to Elliott about them and gotten them in trouble, but he had so much going on with work, and I didn't want to increase his stress level with something so stupid. He was always so stressed out and tired these days, working way harder than he should have been. The guy was over forty now and didn't take as good of care of himself as he used to anymore, so I didn't want a heart attack on my conscience. Maybe I would just make some Ex-Lax brownies or something and leave them out "on accident" for my older siblings to find. It would serve them right.
Esryl and I finished putting away everything, and I set her up with a quick snack to watch Sponge Bob, while I prepped and put two huge chickens and some potatoes into the oven to roast and set the timer. I ran down and started the laundry and brought up a couple of baskets to fold. When Sponge Bob went off, Esryl wanted to finish her picture, so I found the glue and glitter and got her set up. I pulled her highchair up to the island, so I could watch her work and talk to her, while I finished getting the rest of dinner ready.
Mom came in from work, her phone to her ear, and barely acknowledged us before she promptly disappeared into her office to start her evening ritual of finishing work brought home that couldn't wait until tomorrow. She had gotten another promotion recently, and her job had become even more demanding, so much so that she didn't even have time to go to the boys' games anymore. I knew she regretted that, but she really loved her job and wanted to be taken seriously at work, so she didn't complain. I didn't complain, either, though there were lots of times when I really wanted to, but I knew it was pointless. Mom had always been focused on her career, so this was nothing new.
Esryl was still gluing glitter to the paper when Edward came into the kitchen. "You pay wit me, Ewar?" Esryl asked with a sweet smile and huge, wide hazel eyes, as he ducked into the fridge for a soda. He looked at her with a scowl and shook his head no, glancing at me with an even deeper frown, before he stalked back out of the kitchen.
Her sweet smile dissolved, and big, sad tears rolled down her cheeks, as her little heart broke at his rude dismissal. Mine did, too, seeing her so upset. I felt my own tears brimming, glaring at his back as he left. He had hurt Esryl's feelings, and in doing so, he had hurt mine as well. I was used to it, but he really didn't have to be mean to her. She was getting old enough to understand when someone wasn't being kind, but she didn't understand that Edward was just being Edward. When I looked back at her, she was staring at me closely, taking in my tears, so I quickly wiped my eyes and hid my hurt, before I smiled at her reassuringly.
"It's okay, baby, I'll help you finish it before bath time. You're doing great, and it looks really pretty." She nodded and smiled slightly, as I handed her a juice pouch, but the look in her sad little eyes told me Edward's cold rejection had really hurt her this time. I asked her if she wanted to come upstairs with me and play while I did my homework, but she shook her head no and continued to spread glue and glitter on the paper with a determined look on her face, wiping tears and snot on the back of her tiny hands. She never missed an opportunity to play in the attic room with my old toys, so I raised my eyebrow at her.
After the salad and dessert was finished and placed in the fridge, I took Esryl to her room and got her to lie down and look at one of her talking books. She was yawning with heavy eyelids, so I figured she would quickly conk out for a short nap. I slipped out and grabbed the baskets of folded laundry and put them away, straightened and dusted a few areas that needed it, and then I headed upstairs to my attic room to work on my homework until dinner was done.
I sprawled out across my grandma's bed, settling into my history assignment. I turned on the baby monitor and listened to Esryl, as she talked quietly to herself about her book. Silence didn't take long in coming, though, and I was certain she had fallen asleep. I continued working on my homework and was just finishing when I heard loud voices coming from downstairs. It sounded like Edward was having a fit about something, and I didn't really care. However, hearing Esryl scream and start crying had me up and sprinting towards the sound of her voice.
As I hit the bottom step, I saw Edward standing in the family room, and again, he looked like he was about to rupture an artery, while Emmett just looked like he had gotten a free ticket to the circus. Elliott was scolding a wailing Esryl, while my mom was on her knees in front of the piano, a cleaning rag in her hand. On the carpet under the front of the piano were huge, gooey puddles of purple grape juice, glue, and glitter. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle the combined gasp and giggle that was bubbling up in my chest at the sight. Our little Esryl obviously had a vindictive streak. Apparently, the little terrorist had slipped out of her room after I had left her and had retrieved her weapons of mess and destruction, and she'd done it so quietly that no one had even heard her.
The piano was completely covered in a thick layer of sticky glue and glitter, and juice was still oozing slowly from the bottom of it. She had intently watched the piano tuner work here a couple of months ago, fascinated with how he had opened the cabinet up, and it looked like she had used that information. She had managed to lift the top of the piano and squirt the juice inside the cabinet as well. Edward's rude snub earlier had cost him dearly, as our precious little sister had dumped the entire contents of her huge new bottle of white craft glue all over his piano, and then she had proceeded to decorate it with copious amounts of multicolored metallic glitter and several juice pouches she had retrieved and opened herself. I didn't even want to think about how she had done that. How someone so tiny had pulled all this off in a matter of minutes left me in awe. Esryl Andrea Masen obviously was a force to be reckoned with.
Alice was trying to grab Esryl's arm to get her to explain herself, but she was full-out bawling and refused to let Alice touch her. Esryl saw me come into the room and ran away from Alice, right into my arms. "Him wad mean, Bewa. Him not pay wit me, and him maked you sad, too!" she sobbed into my shoulder. I peeked over at Edward, who was standing there with his hands on his hips, looking absolutely livid. Alice and Emmett headed into the kitchen, trying to keep from busting out laughing. Esryl looked up at me with her big wet eyes, trying to gain my sympathy. She had it, but now was not the time to let her get away with anything like this.
"Essie, you ruined something very special to Edward, and you need to say sorry, right now. That wasn't very nice of you," I gently scolded her.
"Him hurted me 'n you, Bewa, and you cwied, too. Him not nice."
"Just because someone does something that's not nice to you and hurts your feelings or makes you cry doesn't mean you have to hurt them back. You should forgive them and love them anyway, and you show them how to be better next time, okay?"
She nodded her head slowly and kissed my cheek before wrapping her tiny arms around my neck, whimpering pitifully.
I turned to Edward and passed her to him. His eyes never left mine, as he took her into his arms. She apologized in her quiet little voice and planted a very wet kiss on his nose. His harsh expression softened, as Esryl continued to stroke his cheek with her glittery little hand, trying to show she was sorry. He apologized as well for not taking a few minutes to play with her. He sighed deeply and mouthed, "I'm so sorry," to me, too, and his eyes told me it was for more than just his snub earlier.
Elliott and mom looked on with wide eyes, as Esryl reached back for me, but instead of coming back into my arms, she pulled me together into a three-way hug with her and Edward. We were touching again, all three of our foreheads together, and again, that same sensation hit me. I was certain Edward felt it this time, too, by the way his eyelashes fluttered slightly, and his breathing hitched.
The old piano had been on its last leg, anyway, but it was pretty much a lost cause now. The glue had seeped down under the keys, and the acid in the juice had swollen the pads on the hammers and had begun rusting the strings and warping the soundboard. The carpet in the living room was also unsalvageable and would have to be replaced. Not only had Esryl gotten the juice in and around the piano, but she had also dripped the glue and the dark, sticky juice all over the beige family room carpet. Those stains weren't going anywhere.
Mom and Elliott decided to replace the carpet throughout the house with hardwood floors just in case something like this ever happened again. Elliott reasoned there would be no use in putting another piano in the room that would just have to be moved again when the new flooring was installed, so a new piano would have to wait a bit. That news thrilled Edward about as much as a case of hemorrhoids would have, and it had about the same affect. It was a royal pain in his rear. However, I doubted he would ever snub his little sister again.