The Brianne Hughes Series

human messes

It was the afternoon, just an hour after Jaxsyn and Taighlor had returned from school. Brianne's least favorite time of day. Tortuous. Arduous. The house swarmed with that disgusting 4:00pm light and fidgety children letting their wiggles run about unrestrained. Brianne poured a glass of chianti. Brian wouldn't know. Or she'd just tell him it was grape juice, which was what she always told the kids.

She sat on the leather couch, allowing her posture to slump into the cushions. Taking another sip, she let the alcohol burn down the back of her throat.

Why was the Instagram page not growing as it should have been? She'd tried, relentlessly, to produce new and humorous reels nearly every day, putting filters on her face and adjusting the brightness to highlight the jewelry pieces she was wearing. And she was funny, damn it. Everyone told her so. Brianne wondered if this was one of the few things in life she could exert no control over. God how she hated those things.

Upstairs she heard the slapping of bare feet on hardwood as Jaxsyn ran from his room to the bathroom. "OH HOLY GOD!" Her son screamed, a phrase he had picked up from somewhere and been uttering constantly as of late. "HOLY GOD ALMIGHTY!" He shrieked again.

"Jaxsyn!" Brianne yelled back. "Whatever is happening is nowhere near as bad as you think it is. Inside voice."

"But Taighlor VOMITED, Mom! She VOMITED all over the bathroom!"

"What?!" Brianne spat, setting down the wine and quickly climbing the stairs.

Like all the throw-up she had dealt with in her ten years as a mother, she smelled it before she saw it. That acidic cacophony of bile and unknown substances. Brianne gagged even at that smell. She had never done well with...human messes. And though this sort of thing had happened before, she realized that Brian was always the one to clean it up.

Brianne stopped in the hallway. "Jaxsyn, come out of the bathroom. Get out of there," she told him.

Jaxsyn clonked on out, his eyes meeting hers for further instruction. "Go downstairs and watch something," she told him.

"Can I watch YouTube?"

"Sure."

"Can I watch Guava Juice?"

Brianne sighed.  "Keep the volume down. Mom doesn't need any more of a headache."

Jaxsyn took off down the stairs without another word.

She walked into Taighlor's room to find her sitting on the floor playing with her Peppa Pig dollhouse. "Sweetie, did you throw up?"

"Yeah," she responded, as if it were a stupid question.

"Do you feel sick?"

"I don't know."

Brianne felt her forehead, which felt like the normal child temperature. Still, better to be on the safe side, at least for tonight. After getting Taighlor into her pajamas and tucking in between her lilac-colored sheets, she brought her ginger ale and crackers, all the while completely ignoring the mess in the bathroom. Brian could handle it. He was better at handling that stuff, and anyways, she had to take care of Taighlor.

After her daughter was settled in bed with her iPad mini, Brianne went downstairs and started making food. She hadn't planned on cooking anything too involved, but why not? She had the time. Brian wouldn't be home for another two hours.

She decided to make chicken noodle soup, a recipe she hadn't so much as thought about since Jaxsyn had started school. Ugh, what an ordeal. She'd have to make the noodles from scratch...and chop the vegetables...that could take a while. Brianne knew she should get started now so it would be ready when Brian got home.

The next two hours she spent cooking and intermittently checking on Taighlor. When Brian walked through the door, he announced, "Ah, something smells good down here." He wandered into the kitchen and put his laptop bag on the granite kitchen island. "What are we having? Soup?" He questioned, leaning over the pot Brianne was stirring.

"Yes, homemade chicken noodle. "

"Homemade? Since when do you cook stuff like this on a Tuesday night? What's the occasion?"

"Ah, well, Taighlor's not feeling well tonight."

"Oh? What's wrong?"

"Nothing too bad. She...threw up a little before 4:00. No fever or anything. I have her in bed right now."

"Aw man, Bri," he said, leaning against the counter. "Had to clean up puke, huh? I know how you hate that stuff."

Brianne kept stirring the soup, in big circles and then small circles, turning the broth into a whirlpool. "Well, actually, I haven't gotten around to cleaning it up yet."

Standing up straight again, Brian put one hand on his hip. "You--you're serious? She threw up two hours ago and it's just been sitting there?"

"Look, I had to take care of Taighlor. And then I was making dinner, so I couldn't--"

He sighed loudly and defiantly. "So that's why you're making this soup? So that you'd have an excuse to make me do the disgusting thing? You--" Brian stopped a second and realized he could hear the TV in the next room. "Hey buddy," he called to Jaxsyn in the living room.

"Hi Dad," his son called back.

"Bri, outside," Brian whispered to her. Reluctantly Brianne followed him onto the back patio, closing the door behind her.

"What do you want me to say, Brian? I can't handle gross stuff like that."

"I don't care! Suck it up! We're parents!"

"Well, I'm sorry I'm disgusted by disgusting things."

"You used to change diapers several times a day, Brianne. Tell me how this is different."

"It's very different," she responded. "To me it is, anyways."

"How?"

"Stuff that...comes out the back...isn't..."

"Got it," Brian cut her off. "Look, the point is, you were the parent on duty, Bri. Don't you think the parent on duty should be the one to take care of gross stuff? When it happens?"

Damn it. Brianne put her fingers to her forehead. "So you--you're saying you want me to go clean up the vomit? Right now?"

Brian looked at her. She hated that look. Queasy guilt, an emotion that only struck her in the rarest of instances, started dripping down her chest. "Whatever, Bri. It's fine. I'll do it. I'm here now anyways."

Without another word, he turned and went back inside. Bri went back to stirring the soup.

...

The next day Brianne stayed home with Taighlor. They'd decided to keep her home from school just for one day as a precaution. After her little girl had fallen asleep on the couch, Brianne went into the kitchen to film a new reel she'd been thinking about since last night.

She recorded herself lipsyncing to an audio clip of a woman using an annoyed tone, begrudgingly telling herself she should apologize. Brianne wrote text in the middle of the screen saying, "The conversation in my head after a fight with my husband...Even when I know I was wrong..."

After cleaning up the video and choosing the right filter, she captioned it, "I like TO THINK I'm always right (even though, of course, I'm not lol)... 🤷🏻‍♀️😂🤷🏻‍♀️. Anyone with me?" She posted it and immediately sent it to Brian.

A few minutes later, he responded, "uh apology accepted I think"

Brianne replied, "😉" and went back to pouring over her Instagram analytics.