“Well, I’m not eating that,” I sneer, picking up the coffee from the granite countertop.
“I didn’t offer you any,” she sasses. “So… How are you?”
I can’t help but scoff, “How do you think I am, Em?”
She frowns, “Why don’t you come with Ty and me to dinner tonight? Mom and Dad are in town.”
“No,” I quip, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why not? Do you think sitting here silently and staring at Ellie’s toys will bring them back? It won’t.”
“No!” I yell, “I don’t want to fucking go, okay!”
Her face falls, making me feel so guilty for yelling at her. She opens her mouth to respond, but instead, she picks her keys up off the counter.
“Wait,” I huff, “Em, wait. I’m sorry, okay. I just can’t go on like everything is okay when it’s not.”
“No one is asking you to, Eric. We know that you are hurting, we know. We just don’t want you to hurt forever. You can’t sit here like this. It’s not you, and if I’m honest, you’ve not been you for a while now.”
My stomach flips upside down, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. You just seem so distant. It’s like my big brother isn’t even really in there. I don’t know what to do to get him back. It felt like I had to beg you to even come to my wedding.”
Shit.
I’m an asshole.
Em’s wedding was the weekend after I learned that my friend Judson’s brother, Jameson, was Ellie’s biological father. Jameson flew his ass here and walked in like he never left. If I’m honest, that’s when it all went south and fast, but I should’ve never taken it out on my sister.
“Em, I’m so sorry. There was so much going on here with Hanna and me, and I never should’ve taken it out on you and Ty.”
I didn’t want to admit it to anyone at the time, but I was jealous. My baby sister was getting married while I was thirty-one, and my life was falling apart.
She rubs a tear from under her eye, “It’s okay. I just wish we were close like we used to be, you know before life happened.”
I pull her into a hug, “We will be. I promise. Still, I’m sorry that I ever made you feel like I didn’t want to be there for you. I did. Now I feel like I need to make it up to you.”
She pushes away, grinning ear to ear, tears still glistening on her lashes, “You can come to dinner.”
Her sudden emotion switch makes me laugh, “You played me.”
She shrugs, “It worked, didn’t it?”
I groan, “Fine. I’ll go but don’t expect me to be the life of the party.”
“Oh, there was never any fear of that, sad or not.”
I scoop some avocado out of the bowl with the spoon and act like I’m gonna fling it at her, “I am absolutely the funniest person in the room the majority of the time.”
She picks up a cutting board off the counter and uses it as a shield, “Yeah, if you call dad jokes funny, sure.”
I let it fly, barely missing her head, and watch as the green slides down the front of my stainless steel refrigerator. “I am funny, Em, and you know it.”
She drops the cutting board. “Sure you are. I’m sure all your friends at bingo just looooove your sense of humor.”
I stand up, ready for battle, “Did you just call me old?”
“Yep,” She smiles, “Do you need me to get your walker and put it in the car for dinner, papaw?”