June finished eating and started to collect the plates.“I’ll take care of those,” Rob offered and took her plate from her.
“I can help.”
“You cooked; I’ll clean the dishes.”Rob collected the rest of the dishes and headed for the kitchen.
“I can help with that,” she insisted and stood up to follow him.
“June, it’s fine.I’m more than capable of cleaning a few dishes.”
“I know you are, but I feel bad just leaving them to you.”
He set the dishes down before turning to look back at her, a strange look coming over his face she couldn’t interpret.“Sure, you wash, and I’ll dry.”
At least he wasn’t dismissing her yet.“Great.”
“Thanks for staying and helping.Cleaning dishes was always my least favorite.”
“I don’t think anyone enjoys doing it.”She didn’t, which was why she put as much as she could in the dishwasher and only hand-washed pots, pans, and spatulas.
“With you and your brother, I’m sure your parents made you do them.”
June piled up the pans and dishes and got the water hot.“Yeah, but what parent doesn’t have their kid do them?”
“Did your brother help or make you do them?”
“When he was younger, yes.Liam couldn’t be bothered by the time he was a teenager.He had more important things to do by then, so he would pay me with his allowance to do them.”
“What did he do, just sit on the couch?”
June shrugged as she finished scrubbing the first pan and rinsed it off before handing it to him.“I don’t know.Guy stuff, I guess.I never asked.He took off and snuck back in late at night.”June wouldn’t say Liam had been rebellious, but he liked to do his own thing.“What?”she asked when he just stared at her with a blank look.“You can’t honestly say you didn’t make your sister do all the dishes.”
“She was older; she didn’t give me a choice but to do them.”
June got a visual and started laughing.
“What?”
“I can just see this older girl grabbing you by the ear and making you do them.”
“It wasn’t quite so dramatic.But Catherine was not going to allow me to shirk my duties.Unlike some siblings,” he commented, giving her a pointed look.
“It didn’t bother me.Like I said, Mom wasn’t a great cook, so the most I had to do was scrape food into the trash and let pans soak overnight to get the burnt bits off.
“No one ever took over for her or got food poisoning?”
“Not food poisoning.We’d have to eat enough of it to get sick.Mom refused to give up.So, we all put on a happy face and grunted through it.Liam was so excited when he moved out and was able to enjoy eating real food.”
“How much older is he?”
“Four years.What about your sister?”
“She’s four years older as well.She loves to act as the mother hen when she visits.My house isn’t clean enough.This and that.I love her dearly, but she can be a bit much.”
“Liam is the same way.I think he feels he has to since he took on the role of both parents, but he’s better as the overprotective brother than nurturing.Thankfully his fiancée is more of the nurturer.She’s the one who really encouraged me to get out of the house more and look into prosthetic legs.”
“She sounds like a real role model.”
“She is.I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for her,” June said, looking away as she thought about Cora.Cora was not only an amazing person, but a great sister-in-law.June couldn’t imagine someone better for Liam.
