Early Bird | ✓

21 | mockingbird

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Lizzy | JJ

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           "LOGAN? Lizzy? Are you up there? Can you come down here for a second?" their mother called from downstairs, her voice carried through the vents and through the closed door. Amidst their worry lay a sense of relief—their furtive eavesdropping escapade remained unknown to their oblivious parents. Lizzy prayed that they could somehow keep the fact that they had an idea of what had transpired under the wraps from their parents. Before Logan could rise to leave, she clutched his shirt and whispered a harsh warning in his ear: "I hope you're better at keep secrets than you are at running without dying."

           Logan tried to conjure up a sassy retort back but Lizzy was already out of her bedroom, strutting down the stairs with seemingly perfect composure. Logan trailed behind albeit sulkier. When the siblings reached the living room, where their parents were seated on the couch together with their hands interlocked, Lizzy elbowed Logan in the stomach and he rearranged his face to feign confusion instead of moroseness.

           "What's up?" Lizzy asked nonchalantly, suppressing her desire to comfort her parents in this difficult time. Her fingers itched with the urge but she held herself back, knowing full well that she'd be able to console them after her mother and father disclosed the information to her themselves.

           Lizzy's mother and father exchanged troubled looks, their mouths set in grim lines. They were silent for many moments, a quiet conversation occurring between them. A flick of a hand. A quirk of an eyebrow. A head jabbing in Lizzy and Logan's direction. Finally, sighing, his wife patting his shoulder for support, their father addressed the elephant in the room reluctantly. "I might as well cut to the chase." He cleared his throat and didn't venture to meet his children's questioning eyes. "The company I work for, Rose Jewelers, went out of business today. It was sudden and unexpected; only Patrick saw the corruption in the company and decided to leave it. I heard the rumors circulating but I figured they were all lies. But they weren't. Lizzy. Logan. I'm going to be out of work for a little while, okay? I'm going to work diligently on finding another job. This just means that you two are going to have to help your mother a lot around the house, okay? Right now, her income as a librarian is the only money that's supporting us right now."

           Lizzy was about to protest, remembering her job at Once and Floral, but her father stopped her in her tracks. It was as if he had read her mind and knew exactly what words were about to abscond from her mouth. "No, Lizzy. I know that you have your job at Once and Floral but your mother and I are not going to ask for your hard-earned money. We're still your parents and we're going to take care of you—not the other way around. Do you understand?"

           Lizzy nodded, shrinking backward a little from her father's matter-of-fact tone. She accidently brushed Logan's shoulder, but instead of flinching away with a few curse words muttered from his lips, Logan seemed to lean into his sister as though desiring her support in this tough situation. Lizzy yearned to wrap her arms around her little brother but she knew that he would most definitely recoil at that so she restrained herself and enjoyed the small comfort they were lending each other in their touching shoulders. They formed a stronger, more fortified structure together than they could ever have built individually.

           "Yes, Dad. I just want to do something to help," Lizzy responded to her father desperately, hoping to somehow persuade him to see reason. The small amount of money Lizzy made could be beneficial, especially in this tight predicament, easing the stressful weight off of her parents' shoulders.

           "You're going to be helpful enough by doing all of your chores without complaint, not fighting each other every second of every day, and performing your best at school," Lizzy's mother piped up, raising an eyebrow at her children expectantly as though she dared them to defy her. Lizzy and Logan exchanged troubled looks, wondering how they could accomplish those three goals that they had never even come close to completing. Maybe now that their father found himself without a job, they would obtain the motivation to transform into better, well-behaved children.