Latter Days

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

            “Jeez, I don’t know, Margo?” I sighed, staring at the flash card Jack was holding up to me. He laughed at me.

            “Margo?! You think that I have a sister named Margo? Wow, Annalie, I know there are a lot of them, but I didn’t realize you seriously weren’t paying a speck of attention. I mean, I assumed you picked up at least something.” Honestly, this was getting annoying.

            “Jack, why can’t I just meet your siblings when I actually get inside your house? I think it would be easier to put a face to a name if I could actually see the face in person.”

            We were currently sitting in Jack’s truck in his driveway. I just wanted to get in the house and get this whole dinner over with, but Jack insisted on quizzing me on his siblings’ names beforehand. We’d only made it through two cards, and I had already failed.

            “No, Annalie. We’ll go inside when you’ve got them all down. I spent all night last night making these stupid cards. This’ll help, I promise. Okay, so,” he held up another card with a girl on it. She looked about 8 years old and had brown, curly, shoulder-length hair. I knew that I knew her name, it was just taking a while for it to come to me.

            “Wait a second, I have it. One sec…. Kim?”

            “Yes! You’ve got one!” Jack seemed genuinely proud of me. “Okay, so you’ve got her name—how old is she?” He looked toward me, full of hope.

            “Eight?” I guessed.

            “You got it! Kim’s a firecracker—remember that. She’s one of the littlest ones, but she’ll take you down,” he smiled. “Alright, so Kim likes soccer and her position is…?”

            I knew this right away. “Goalie!” Jack didn’t anything this time; he just held his right fist out. I touched it with my own and smiled.

            “Alright, a couple more,” he grabbed another card. “This one should be easy,” he said as he held it up to me. The girl in this picture had long blonde hair and a huge smile. He was right, it was easy.

            “That’s Kelsey!” I said enthusiastically. “I know that one because she’s your only sister that goes to Hemlock with us.”

            “Awesome! And Kelsey is a member of the…?”

            “Drama club! She’s starring in Alice in Wonderland soon, right?”

            “Yeah, she is,” he beamed. “Awesome, good job. Okay, what about this one?”

            This one was a bit more confusing. I knew there were two in middle school, and they looked a whole lot alike. They were both brunette, like Jack, and both had wavy hair, also like Jack. I threw out a name. “Is that…Annie?”

            “Eeeehhh!” Jack buzzed at me. It startled me, to be honest. “That’s Sarah. She’s in eighth grade. Annie is the one in sixth grade.” I nodded. “Now Annie wants to be exactly like Sarah, and looks up to her a lot, so I can see why you’d get them confused. They’re both into singing. Sarah, because she actually enjoys it, and Annie, because Sarah enjoys it.” This made me chuckle.

            “Alright, so I have Sarah, Annie, Kelsey, and Kim. How many are there again?”

            “You’ve got half of them so far. We’re almost done, then we can go in, okay?”