My Family

His feet moved slowly on the way to school, dragging across the pavement. On the way home from school it was different.

He wondered if his dad was home yet and if he was drunk or not. Most of all he wondered if she was okay, his baby sister. Lisa.

Almost everyday she was left by herself in the house, Leonard wished there was someone who could watch her during the day but his father never bother to even try and find a babysitter. Leonard suggested it once but... it didn't go over well. His father wasn't the type of person who was open to suggestions, especially ones that would cost him money.

Sometimes Leonard took Lisa to the library when if there was a read-aloud time or to the small community center near their house if they had an event for kids on that particular day. He would cut a few classes, go home and then take Lisa to the event. He would have willingly cut more classes to take her home again but she would insist on doing it by herself, claiming that she was a "big girl."

Today he was only mildly worried because he knew that Lisa had been safe at the community center all afternoon. He had cut math class to take her there for the monthly craft afternoon.

When he entered the house he saw that Lisa stood by the fridge, a roll of tape clutched in her small fist. She turned around when she heard him come in.

"I made a dwaing Wennie!" she said excitedly, pointing to the sheet of paper she had tapped somewhat crookedly onto the refrigerator door.

He walked over and looked at the drawing. Two stick figures graced the paper, one was a boy drawn with blue crayon while the other was a girl drawn with yellow crayon. The picture was labeled, My Family.

Lisa pointed to the blue stick figure, "That's you..." she moved her finger to the yellow stick figure, "...and me!" She grinned proudly at her masterpiece.

"Li-li, you called the drawing 'my family' but you didn't draw-"

"Mick? I fowgot him!" she gave her brother a worried and remorseful look.

Leonard said nothing. He meant to ask why she hadn't drawn their father but obviously, that never even occurred to her. He didn't really blame his sister for not adding their father, he didn't even really deserve the title 'father'.

"I know!" Lisa squealed excitedly, "Imma add him in." she ran off to find a crayon.

A few moments later she was back with an orange crayon in hand. She proceeded to add a third stick figure, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration.

"Done!"

"It looks great sis."

"You wike it?"

"Yup, you did a great job."

Lisa smiled proudly at his praise before skipping off to her room to play.

Later when Lisa was in bed asleep and Leonard was sitting at the kitchen table filling in all the answers to his homework with snarky comments, Lewis Snart came stubbing into the house. He was as usual, drunk.

The man shuffled over to the fridge for lord knows what when he spotted his daughters drawing.

"Whaaa the hell is this junk on my fridge?" he demanded. Before even waiting for an answer he reached out and ripped the paper off the fridge and crumpled it up, tossing it in the general direction of the garbage can.

"Now I fergot what I was gonna get." He slurred, swaying slightly on his feet as he let go of the fridge handle. He walked unsteadily to his room and slammed the door, muttering curses as he went.

Leonard, still at the table, clenched his fist so hard that his pencil snapped. His father probably didn't even care that Lisa didn't consider him family and left him out of her drawing. His father didn't care about anything but himself and money.

Getting to his feet, Leonard walked over to the lonely ball of paper laying on the floor. He stooped down and picked it up, smoothing out the creases as best he could.

He looked at the three stick figures that were drawn with such love and he smiled.

Leonard gather up his unfinished homework and headed to his room. He tossed the school stuff carelessly onto his desk and grabbed a roll of tape. Stepping towards one of his bedroom walls, he ripped a piece of tape off the roll. After using up a few more strips of the stick adhesive, he stepped back to survey his handiwork.

Tapped on his bedroom wall, was Lisa's drawing.