With You By My Side

The Attic

Saturday, March 19, 2016

"I hope you're happy." Izzie Brooks glared at her sister as she kicked a dust-covered box out of her way. "Ow! Dammit!"

Laura didn't even try to stifle her laughter as the younger girl hopped around on her left foot, trying to hold on to her now-sore right one. "Serves you right." 

"If my toes are all broken you'll have to drive me everywhere all week long," Izzie growled.

"Like we're ever going anywhere anyway," Laura snapped. "Look at this nastiness."

Cleaning out the attic had been their mother's first day of spring goal project. She'd had it written on the organizer that covered her home-office wall for weeks. It was even circled in red. That meant she was serious about getting it done. Of course, she'd had no second thoughts about delegating the task to her daughters when they'd launched World War III over whatever teen angst-filled issues they'd decided to loudly hash out last night while she was trying to get the taxes filed. 

"And you're not done until you can figure out how to get along, so don't ask every fifteen minutes." She'd handed them each a bottle of water. "Bathroom breaks only until lunch. No phones. And don't even roll your eyes at me," she'd warned before they could.

"I used to wish I had a sister. You two have no idea how it feels to be alone. You need to learn to appreciate each other."

They grabbed the water and turned away.

"I see those eyes rolling!" Emma Brooks called as the girls trudged up the stairs, long chestnut braids bouncing angrily against their backs.

"Oh, my God, your toes aren't broken, you big baby," Laura groaned as Izzie continued to examine her foot. She'd already perched on an old rocking chair and taken off both shoes and socks. "And now it's gonna stink even worse up here."

"Shut up. What do you know? You barely passed biology. Do you even know the names of the bones in the foot?"

"Why does that even matter? Nothing's broken, and even if it was, they'd just wrap them up and you'd be fine anyway. Suck it up. Let's just get this done so we can get out of here sometime today."

Laura shook open a huge trash bag and started sweeping up piles of clutter. 

"You're not even going to look through the stuff? You're just throwing everything away?" Izzie scrambled to get her socks and shoes back on, her foot apparently miraculously healed.

"It's just old crap." Something tickled the side of Laura's face, and as she swatted at it, the sticky cobweb attached itself to her hand. "So. Freakin. Nasty!" She shook her whole body to rid herself of the offensive web. It was Izzie's turn to laugh. 

"Whatever." Laura turned back to a pile of magazines and started tossing them in the garbage bag.

"Wait!" Izzie charged. 

"Why?" Laura demanded. "Mom wants the attic cleaned out. We can't keep all this crap."

"What if they're Dad's?"

Laura sighed. "I don't think he ever read Woman's Day. But knock yourself out checking every last thing to be sure."

"You act like you don't even care," Izzie accused. "You think he'd let you go out with Mitch and John and all those losers? You'd be so busted if Dad was still..."

"Doesn't really matter now, does it?" Laura shot back. "The Army screwed up all of our lives, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, so mind your own business."

Izzie retreated to the opposite side of the attic while Laura turned toward the window, her face red. She was not about to cry. Definitely not in front of her sister.