I turned my eyes to the opening of the kitchen and saw my six-year-old, dark-haired, blue-eyed nephew Jethro standing there.
I mean, serious.
From birth to now, that kid was adorbs.
And I loved him with everything that was me.
Or half of that.
I loved his sister with the other half.
I smiled at him even as I put my finger to my lips and whispered, “Shh.”
His entire face ticked, the exuberance washing clean out of it, and my heart lurched seeing it.
Eggshells.
My two babies’ lives were all about walking on eggshells.
With Daddy and his hangovers, if they ever spent time with him, which was rare, but even so, he didn’t stop drinking through it.
With Mommy and her migraines, her bad back, her bum knee, her creaky hips, if they ever spent any time with her, which wasn’t as rare, but they were off to Auntie Ryn’s place, or one of their grandmas, and they were this often, because Mommy needed peace and quiet and rest.
Sure, it takes a village.
And I was so down with being part of that village for Jethro and his older sister, Portia.
But bottom line, a kid needed to be able to count on their parents.
At least one of them.
I moved to him, asking quietly, “Have you had your bath, baby?”
“Last night,” he whispered.
I put my hand on his thick hair, bent to kiss his upturned forehead, and as I straightened, I looked left.
My curly-blonde-haired, also blue-eyed Portia was at the table, eating a massive bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
I loved Cap’n Crunch.
I could make a pretty convincing argument that Cap’n Crunch was a major component of the meaning of life.
What I did not love was my seven-year-old niece horking down a huge bowl of sugary crunches that had no nutritional value, she’d burn it off in approximately fifteen minutes and then crash.
Another decimated bowl was beside Portia’s, kibbles of cereal and smears of milk all around the bowl on the table.
Jethro’s breakfast.
I said not a word because I knew Portia poured those bowls for her brother and herself. She “made” breakfast, seven-year-old-style, and did the best she could.
“Hey, honey,” I called.
She had milk on her chin when she looked up at me and replied, ‘Hey, Auntie Ryn.”
I smiled at her and then looked down at Jethro.
“Right, want your face cleaned up, bucko. Anything you need to take to school today?”
He looked like he was concentrating, hard, to remember if he was supposed to take anything to school.
Then again, it wasn’t his job to keep track of that. Not yet.
“I’ll poke my head in and ask your mom,” I told him.
“She needs quiet.” Having been reminded of this fact by me, he was still whispering.
But at his words, Portia made a noise like a snort.
A disgusted one.
A lot like the sound I was making in my head.
Though I didn’t want Portia having this reaction about her mom, I had to admit, my niece had been displaying signs of impatience that were about twenty years older than she was, and she’d been doing this for a while now.
I ignored her and said to Jethro, “I’ll be real quiet when I ask her. Now go wash your face. And your hands.”
He nodded and ran off, so I looked to Portia.
“After you’re done, honey, you too with the washup. Do you need to take anything to school?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But my book bag is ready.”
I hated to ask what I next had to ask because I had been that kind of sister to my brother when I was seven.
Keeping track of him.
Keeping track of me.
“Do you, uh…know about your brother?”
She shoved more cereal in her mouth and said in a garbled way I still could decipher before chewing it, “Show and tell day today. I put something in his bag. He’ll figure it out.”
“Chew and swallow, Portia,” I urged carefully, not her mother, but needing to be motherly, which pissed me off because I wanted to be Fun Auntie Rynnie, not Fuddy Duddy Aunt Kathryn. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
She looked down at her bowl and her cheeks got pink.
Crap.
Fuddy Duddy Aunt Kathryn sucked.
I moved to the table and started to clean up Jethro’s breakfast.
“You should make Mom do that, you know,” Portia said.
“When she beats this headache, we’ll just give her a little break,” I replied.
“Yeah, another one,” she mumbled, dropped her spoon in her still half-filled bowl and jumped off the chair she was using, having been sitting on her knees.