Cory's family - Part 2

September 2030

Cory is 54; Rose is 40; Melissa is 20; Corinne is 13; Noah is 10; Emily is 4 

If Melissa thought her butterfly was a cliche, Rose wondered what she would make of her off-and-on wish to get a tattoo herself - of, well, a rose. But the school didn't like teachers having visible tattoos so she'd have to get it somewhere where only Cory would see it. Given his feelings about them, that just felt like a waste.

 As expected, he wasn't happy about Melissa's, and he didn't keep that to himself.

Melissa managed to stay silent until he was finished. 

"Ok, now you're done, can I say something?"

"If you're going to tell me you're an adult and its your body and you can do what you want, I know that, but - "

"Can I say something please?"

"You're right, its my body," She said, "That's why I got the tattoo, although not the way you think... It's like... it's like when something belongs to you, you put your mark on it or you change it, just to show its yours... like you decorate a house the way you want it or you plant something in the garden or something...

"I don't understand," Cory said. "Your body already belongs to you, you don't have to put your mark on it to prove it."

"But that's the thing," Melissa said. "For a long time it didn't feel like it belonged to me. And now it does. I just wanted to do something that I can see, to show that."

"Ok... well... if that's what you want... but its still going to take some getting used to. I just... when I see tattoos I think of skinny old men in bars with wrinkly flabby skin where they used to have muscles, and - "

"Ugh, that sounds horrible!"

"Well, if that's there for life, then ... "

... then I'm just going to have to get fat when I'm old, aren't I?"

"Seriously...?"

"Um... dinner's ready..."

The kids appeared in the kitchen surprisingly quickly. Rose suspected they'd been listening to Cory and Melissa from the hallway.

Cory, stop staring at her arm.

Everyone ate slowly, sneaking glances at each other. It was Noah who finally spoke up.

"This tastes horrible! You should have got Melissa to cook!"

"Noah, that's not - " Cory started.

"He's right," Rose said, "I might have left something out of the recipe. I was kind of distracted"

"But Melissa is a better cook even when you do it right," Noah said.

"Noah!"

"He's not wrong, though," Corinne added.

 

Melissa wasn't sure that she was a better cook than Rose, but she did know that she enjoyed everything about working with food.

She'd worked in April Bertino's café some afternoons while she was in high school, and April had taught her the proper ways to prep food when they were short of kitchen staff.  

She cooked a lot of the meals in her dorm. She hadn't told anyone, but she was looking into what she would need to do to become a chef when she finished college. 

For now, she was satisfying her interest by watching cooking shows after everyone had gone to bed.

When she finally went up to her bedroom, she found Emily in her bed. She looked so cosy, Melissa decided to leave her there. The sofa would be comfortable enough. She would ask Emily why she'd been there, in the morning.

As it turned out, she didn't have to.

Both girls were still tired and annoyed, and the tension between them had been building up for a while.  All it took was Emily being in Corinne's way in the kitchen...

... and then suddenly everyone knew about the nightmares, and the broken sleep...

 ...and how Emily had been scared out of their room...

... and how Corinne couldn't even enjoy her own room or have any space to herself...

... and - 

"Ok, both of you, STOP IT NOW!" Cory almost never raised his voice. When he did, it got their attention. "We'll talk about this later, after we've had breakfast and you two have had a chance to calm down."

"I don't wanna have breakfast with her," said Emily.

"It's ok," said Rose. "You can have breakfast over here with me.

"Do you know why you don't want me to go?"

"Because I'll miss you!"

"Yeah, I'll miss you too, but do you know why you'll miss me?"

"Well... because we have fun."

"Yeah. We have fun and we make good memories, right? That's why you like having a big sister around, right?."

"Yeah."

"We'll still do that when I come home, but even when I'm not there, you've got something more important to do. You get to be the big sister."

"Huh?"

"Emily's getting bigger and you'll be able to do more together. You think we make fun memories, but now you get to make the same kind of memories for Emily. You get to be that person for her.."

Corinne didn't even care what her parents said to her later. It couldn't be any worse than Melissa seeing first hand how badly she'd failed to be that person for Emily.