Page 1 of Here and Now
one
Miles
“You’re late,” Eloise says as she opens the door, hand resting on her swollen stomach.
“And hello to you too, my beautiful twin sister.”
She ignores me and lifts her hand. “I’m tired, seventy-six months pregnant, and my husband decided to play hockey with my idiot brother two weeks ago and break his leg.You’re lateis all you’re getting.”
“I didn’t know one could be pregnant for that long,” I try to focus on that fact instead of the injury that was totally my fault. I mean, maybe not completely my fault, since I didn’t break his leg, but the reason he was playingisbecause of me.
She glares. “You broke my husband.”
“Not on purpose. And where is the patient?”
“In the living room—with a bell.”
Oh, my sister must love that.
“Who gave him a bell?” I ask.
“Your nephew.”
Of course he did, because he’s a little shit stirrer, just like his mother was.
“To be fair, it’s something you would’ve done,” I remind her.
Eloise is the quintessential little—she’s three minutes younger—sister. She was annoying throughout my childhood, but she also had a devious side. My grandmother never knew what to do with her,because she was too smart for her own good. I was able to use my excess energy toward hockey, but since Eloise doesn’t have an athletic bone in her body, she used it to cause a lot of trouble.
She huffs. “I know, that’s why I can’t even hate him. Anything to annoy Gran was my goal; it seems my son has picked up the same thought process.”
Our mother died when Eloise and I were only four days old. She had a complication that went unnoticed, and our maternal grandma took us in, since our father didn’t want to raise two babies on his own. I blame the doctors and the hospital. Someone should’ve known, should’ve seen it. Instead, my sister and I lost a mother we never even got to know.
“Where is our young Ethan?”
“Out back, probably spray-painting the barn or some other awful thing that will make me want to rip out my hair.” My sister sits on the kitchen chair and releases a heavy sigh, blowing her bangs up in the air. “I can’t do this, Miles. I’m at my absolute limit. Between Ethan and his antics, Doug having major surgery on his leg, and I’m about to pop ... I’m going to lose it.”
When Eloise was pregnant with Ethan, it was not an easy time. She was convinced at one point that she would die like our mother did. Thankfully, she didn’t even have a single issue. It was a textbook birth, according to her. Today, though, that stress and worry is prevalent in her gaze.
I step closer and sit beside her, my hand resting on her forearm. “I’m here.”
She glares. “Yeah, that’s not exactly a comfort.”
I do my best to remember she’s moody and not take offense to that one. “Well, it should be. I’m the responsible adult in this family.”
Eloise laughs and pushes my hand away. “You’re the one who made him play, and now I have to handle thisalone.”
“To be fair, no one made your husband do a damn thing, but I’ll take the blame if it’ll make you feel better.”
“It would.”
“Then you’re right, it’s my fault.”
“It always is,” she says as she rubs her stomach.
Then the bell rings, and I swear I see the steam start to exit her ears. Deciding that Eloise is at that point where she might actually kill Doug, I take pity and step in. “I’ll go see what he wants.”
The tension in her shoulders releases a bit. “Remove that fucking bell from his hands or I’m going to shove it so far up his?—”
