Pickled Onions

62 | nail polish

Jonah | Elena

Sera | Willow

Other

Elena walked up to Sera's house and rang the doorbell. She heard a few giggles from Willow as the door opened to reveal a tired looking Sera and a smiley Willow dancing to a tune she was humming.

"Ellie! Come in!" smiled Sera as she stepped into the house.

"Hey, I brought some cookies for Willow and ice cream. Is that ok?"

"Yeah! Totally. You can give her one now if you want."

Ellie crouched down to face the smiley one and a half year old.

"Uncle Ellie!" Willow exclaimed.

"Hmm, does Willow want a cookie?"

"Yes! Yes!" she squealed, excited at the prospect of getting a cookie.

Elena handed over the cookie and walked towards the living room where Sera was setting up something.

"So.. what're we doing today for our girls day?"

"I thought that we could do our nails and then maybe watch a movie? Maybe we could bake after some time as well."

"That sounds great!" she said.

Maybe a fun day would get her mind off the recent events and she sat down on the beanbag as Sera got out her nail polishes.

"Any colour in particular?"

"Maroon maybe?"

Sera nodded and started to file her nails when Willow came running. She had probably finished the cookie.

"Mama! I want wainbow!" she said referring to the nail polish.

"Ok honey. Wait for Elena's to be done. In the meantime, could you maybe draw a picture?"

"Okay!" she replied enthusiastically before running off the find paper to draw an 'oof-oof'.

•••

While Sera painted Elena's nails, she kept quiet. It was a comfortable sort of a silence until Sera broke it.

"I'm sorry about Jonah. Really sorry. I just didn't know he'd shout that at you.."

"Yeah, it's mainly my fault. Don't take it personally."

"Elena. You didn't know."

"Where has he gone?"

"Some university thing.

"Oh."

"Yeah, he has high hopes for this one."

"What's he doing?"

"Microbiology."

"Oh."

"What about you?"

"Microbiology."