Chapter Ten
“Would you stop with the hateful glares?” JC asked when he saw the fourth look of disgust his wife had tosses his way in the last fifteen minutes. “I already told you I talked to her about it and Jen, as much as I… as much as I don’t want to, we can’t let her just go free. She’s got to be punished.”
“Joshua! You cannot punish that child for defending herself!”
“Jesus, Jen! She didn’t have to “defend herself”! She could have told a teacher!”
“Do you really ignore our daughter THAT much during our mealtime conversations? Every day for the past month, Josh! A month! She’s come home, complaining about that nasty little girl. She’s TOLD her teachers. They’ve done nothing! Quite frankly, I’m glad she socked the little snot! Maybe next time she’ll”“
“See! You can’t go around teaching Abbi these things!”
“I’m not teaching her anything! Don’t you think having her father upset with her is punishment enough?”
“No.”
“That’s funny, because I recall you feeling that way with Julie just a few days ago! You can’t go around showing favoritism towa”“
“How dare you? How dare you accuse me of showing favoritism between those two! The circumstances were completely different! Julie told a lie. Abbi hurt someone, Jen! There’s no comparison there!”
“What part of ‘she didn’t start the fight’ don’t you understand?” JC shook his head incredulously. His wife was usually the levelheaded one. He had no idea what had gotten into her, but she wasn’t letting things go!
“I don’t care if she started it or not. She hurt another little girl and that’s completely unacceptable.”
“Well right now, you’re being an ass and THAT’S completely unacceptable!” She growled. She walked towards the door, turning to toss him another disgusted glare before walking out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
~*~
He hated when his wife insisted on going to bed angry. He knew she would stew about it all night long and possibly just be angrier in the morning. He gave a loud sigh and rolled over onto his side to face her. He knew she wasn’t asleep.
“Jen?”
“What?” She grumbled in response.
“Baby, please do not be like this. I hate it when you get so upset with me without even letting me explain myself!”
“Did you SEE her face, Joshua? Did you? That little girl was absolutely crushed when you were going off on her without even LISTENING!”
“Just like you’re doing now, Jen. I already told you, I talked to Abbi. I apologized for jumping to conclusions. She’s forgiven me for that, why can’t you?”
“I don’t want to punish her.”
“You may not, but I do. I’m not saying that I’m going to strap her down and beat her with a belt! I’m talking something small. No TV while she’s suspended, something like that.”
Even though she knew her husband was right to some extent, she still didn’t want to punish her. But she had to admit, that was a light sentence for the crime.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it, baby. Honestly? I’m proud of Abbi. But I can’t tell her that. I don’t want her to think it’s acceptable for her to fight,” he said softly. “And I’d really appreciate it if you’d back me on this.”
With a nod, Jen leaned forward and kissed his nose softly. How could she disagree with him? The look he was giving her was too hard to resist.
~*~
“Hi dad.”
Looking up from his place on the couch, JC couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. His eldest daughter had not talked to him for two days and now here she was, chatting like they were old friends. Something was up.
“Hi Jules,” he responded, glancing back down at the book in hand. He didn’t know what she wanted, but it had to be something.
“I need to talk to you about something, dad,” Julie told him, taking a seat next to him. She gave him a sweet little smile as he closed his book and dropped it on the table, glancing over at her.
“Yeah?”
“Well… it’s about this weekend, actually. Brianna is having a sleepover because Uncle Joey and Aunt Kelly are going to be going away, and she doesn’t want to stay at home by herself. So I was wondering…”
“You really think that I’m going to agree to let you go after the way you talked to me?”
Grunting in disgust, Julie set her lips into a distinct pout as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“But dad”“
“No. I don’t think so, Julie.”
“Why do you have to be so unreasonable?”
“Unreasonable? You want to talk about unreasonable? In last WEEK, Julie, you’ve done a complete 180 in your attitude and I don’t like it!”
“Well I don’t like you right now.”
“You know what? I don’t like YOU right now very much either,” he responded, standing up and grabbing his book as he walked out of the room, not glancing back. He missed the completely dumbfounded look on his daughter’s face.
~*~
“I’m an ass, Jen.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Julie’s not talking to me again.”
Jen had already noticed. Things had been stressed at dinner, with not even Abbi chattering as usual. Jen had pretended not to notice. But it was obvious.
“She just… she wants to go to Brianna’s this weekend and I told her no, and she called me unreasonable and why do teenaged girls have to be so freaking hormonal, or whatever?”
“Honey, I had to break it to you, but you’ve got another three years of it.”
JC fell back against the pillows with a loud groan, throwing his arm over his eyes dramatically. He lifted his arm and leaned over to give his wife’s round belly a gentle pat.
“Hey you in there… you better be a boy or else I swear, I’m having myself committed! You hear me, buddy?”
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