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I roll my eyes. “So all of you can be worried and around all the time, but I can’t?”
“Yes!” All six of them say in unison.
I wiggle out from under my brothers’ arms. “That’s hypocritical, and you know it.”
“Millie, it’s not that you aren’t allowed to worry or be here, it’s just that you—”
Danny stops mid-sentence as Ben takes over. “You tend to take over.”
“I do not!”
Matt tries to hold back a smirk, “Yeah. You kind of do. You’re Mom. And Mom tends to take over things. So you can imagine how annoyed Mom is that she is being out-mom-ed.”
“So all of this is to say that I’m not letting Mom take care of Dad like she wants to because I’m in the way?”
“I think she’s got it!” Danny cheers, and I smack him in the stomach.
“Okay, fine. I’ll go back to my place.”
“Good. Go hang out with your roommates. Go hangout with Jonathan. Go do something with Mark.”
I nod. I guess I have been a little too preoccupied with Dad to pay attention to anything or anyone else the last few days.
“Fine.”
Mom walks into the kitchen behind us. “Did she agree?”
I turn to face her. “You do know you could have said something to me yourself, right?”
Mom smiles at me. “Where’s the fun in that?”
I laugh as I give her a big hug.
“I’m sorry I took over. I was just so worried.”
“I know, sweetie. But it’s not your job to take care of us.” She leans back. “At least not yet. Maybe someday we will need that, but for right now, just keep being the child and let us be the parents?”
I nod.
As everyone starts to leave the kitchen after my, not so subtle intervention, Ben hangs back. He’s silent until we’re the last two in the room.
“I talked with Mark last night.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“And how did that go?”
“Fine. We had some words, but he’s still my bro.”
Since Ben is openly talking to me, I refrain from rolling my eyes at his use of “bro”.
“We talked a lot about you.”
“And what did you say?”
Ben’s head hangs low, “At first, I was mad. That you two were spending time together. That you started dating. That you lied about it. Then I felt bad that I was mad, when I was probably proving exactly why you didn’t tell me. I guess I can get a little territorial.”
