Tea for Two

What a peaceful afternoon. You know life can be so chaotic it’s nice to just have time to yourself and rela-. 

“Sissy! Come play! My tea set looks so pretty, come look!” I have spoken too soon. My kid sister Maggie jumps on my bed. 

“Maggie! I’m busy right now! Can I have one second to myself!?” Now I’m aware I could very well be seen as the villain right now, but hear me out. I rarely get time to myself. Between school and swimming practice, along with my job. It’s a lot. So I make sure to set aside time where I can do all the things I haven’t been able to. I’m not quite sure if that helps my case at all but hopefully, it at least gives you some reason as to why I reacted how I did.

“But you ALWAYS have time to yourself.” I know she’s very young and also over-exaggerating to make a point. That being said, it gets on my nerves because no, I don’t EVER have time for myself. I can’t make her understand, which only frustrates me more. 

“No, I don’t! Please just leave me be. Go ask mom or dad to play.” She hears this thinks it is a wonderful plan so she scurries off to ask our parents to go to her little play tea set up. The point is I’m finally alone again. Wonderful. I grab a book and read about ten pages before realizing I left my book tabs downstairs. I debate whether or not I go down and risk getting stopped by anyone and forced into a conversation and just choose to run down very quickly to avoid this problem. Plus, they’re probably in the sunroom anyways so it’s less likely I will bump into someone there.

I leave my room closing the door quietly and head for the stairs. I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear, yelling. Shit.

“You know what no Michael it’s fine I’ll just stop everything I’m doing because you don’t want to be around your kid!”

“Oh yeah, sorry Beth I forgot you’re the only one with responsibilities.” 

“You selfish prick! I work all day 5 days a week for you to sit on your ass waiting to have your ‘artistic breakthrough’!”

“Okay. When you’re at work who watches the kids? Me!” I have to get her. 

I rush down the stairs and see our parents, faces red and fingers pointing. Then I see my baby sister. Balling her eyes out because she asked her parents to play. I remember I went through the exact same thing when I was her age. I just needed love and attention. I needed my parents.

I step into the room and Maggie stops and looks at me. My parents don’t do anything, they’re so engrossed in hating each other to care about anything else. I go around them and pick up Maggie, she jumps into my arms without hesitation. 

Before leaving I turn to my parents. I don’t need them anymore, I’ve been through years of disappointment with these two and I’m done with it. So my little sister needs someone to look up to, and it’s not gonna be them. 

I bring Maggie to the kitchen and sit her down on the counter. I give her tissues and wipe her tears.

“Take deep breathes okay? Like this.” I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. She follows my lead. While she does some deep breathing I comfort her and let her know none of this is her fault. She’s just being a kid. 

“Are they mad at me?” She looks at me with teary eyes. The innocence in that question chokes me up. She’s more worried about them than herself. 

“No sweetie, they’re mad at each other.” I take a pause and decide what to do next. “Anyways, would you like to grab some snacks for our tea party?” I see her eyes light up. 

“You’re gonna come to my tea party?” She says excitedly.

“Ummm. Of course! Now, what should we bring?” I take her off the counter and we rummage through the cabinets to find things for her party.

Arms full of treats and utensils and drinks we start heading upstairs. She runs up and I’m still closer to the bottom of the stairs by the time I hear her door open. I start climbing the stairs but feel my mom looking at me. 

“What are you doing with all of that?” My mom asks.

“Parenting my sister because you are incapable of doing so.”

“Excuse me you can’t talk to me like that, I am your mot-”

“Don’t talk to me. I’ve gotten this far without you and dad to be there for me. I’m gonna teach her to do the same.” I say out of pure rage and quickly move up the stairs. 

I reach my sister’s room and she is just absolutely glowing. She has a bedsheet across her tiny table as a table cloth and has set up the two plates that she insisted on carrying. 

“Wow, Maggie this is beautiful!”

“Thanks, sissy!” I help her set up the rest of our supplies. I put some plastic utensils down next to the plates, and I give her some chips, a bit stale but she doesn’t care. I just plan on having a rice krispy treat but then the child dumps a bunch of chips on my plate. She really didn’t have good control over the bag so they sort of spilled everywhere. She got a look of panic on her face and her eyes got really sad.

“I’m sorry.” She says dropping the bag on the table.

“Hey, it’s alright silly. Look you barely spilled any, and you know what I actually wanted a lot of chips so thank you! You’re a very good tea party host, missy.” She smiles big and bright, which makes me smile. So I grab the chips that fell on the floor and put them in the garbage can in the bathroom. 

When I get back she’s trying to unscrew the top of the Sprite bottle I brought.

“Would you like some help with that m’lady?” I say reaching for the bottle.

“Yeth” She says with a lisp and hands me the bottle. I twist it open and pour both of us glasses. 

“Be careful.”

“I know sissy”

“Alright, just making sure.” I let her pick the movie because I highly doubt she’s going to want to watch a John Mulaney stand-up special. She picks a movie and we watch sipping sprite out of little plastic teacups and eating whatever snacks we could find in the kitchen. I’m not always going to have this, so I’m gonna enjoy it while I can.