Not An Instant Family

Memory

Ellie pov
After the kids got their haircuts we headed home. Lita got a trim and Juan decided to clean up his hair too.
Lita ran to Lizzie who was watching YouTube on her phone on the couch.
"Lizzie look! Look!" She screamed
"Yeah! You look beautiful!" Lizzie says
"Oh and Juan! Muy guapo!" Lizzie comments. Juan smiles and sits next to her.
I decide to get time for myself and I relax with a magazine on my bed. My phone rings.
"Hello? Kim?"
"Omg hi! So I need to come over today because. You have to see what I found in mom's house!" Kim's voice is excited and peppy.
We hang up and I sigh. God knows what shit she has to show me. I keep reading my magazine till I hear the door bell. Meatball barks and the kids get silent.
I walk over and open the door to Kim.
"Hi guys! Hi!" She says as she hugs me and all the kids.
"So Ellie, I found your high school year book from your senior year. I wanted to bring it over because I think your kids will get a laugh" Kim chuckles
"You should see yourself el. Your hair looks like Amelia Earhart ." Kim laughs
"Oh great kimmy! Give them more reason to poke fun at me" I say light heartedly.
We all head to the kitchen. Kim puts the yearbook on the table and flips to my senior photo. Oh god, my hair!
"Look kids!" Kim points. Lita screams in joy and laughs. Juan laughs too, but tries to cover it up to not hurt my feelings too much. Lizzie covers her mouth and gives a few chuckles.
"Nice hair." Lizzie says smirking.
Kimmy and I flip a few pages
"Oh my gosh! It's Luke! God, he was hot. Did you hear on Facebook? He's a born again with 7 kids!" Kim exclaims
"No way! Quarter back Luke? Geez, what happened to us!" I say
"We got old El." Kim explains.
The kids laugh and Lita eagerly grabs at the pages. Lizzie scolded, but Kimmy reassured. The high school we went to was huge, thousands of kids went there so the yearbook was very stacked. I passed it over to Juan who waited patiently for his turn.
I walked over to the top cabinet to grab a bottle of wine. I poured a small glass and I poured my sister one too. I handed her the glass. We bickered and laughed together, catching up on life.
Juan and Lita got bored of the yearbook so they ran off to play with boxes. I slid the book to Lizzie who played on her phone nearby. She smiled and looked through the book.
Kimmy shared embarrassing stories of high school, most, of not all involving me.

Lizzie POV
I flipped the pages of students and judged their styles and haircuts. I read the names too. I read one name in the P section. It was all too familiar. Steven Peterson. I looked at the photo, it was him... those same ghostly light blue eyes that bulged out. I brought a hand up to my mouth and I stared dumbly at the photo with my mouth slightly open. My breathing started to feel faltered
"Hey, honey, are you ok?" I could hear Ellie, but I couldn't at the same time. I just looked at her. I then looked at Kim who looked worried. My hearing came back and I suddenly felt a strong sense of awareness.
"Oh um, yes." I said
"Are you sure?" Ellie asked
"Mmhm!" I nodded
"I'm um, I'm gonna go see what Juan and Lita are doing." I smiled awkwardly.

Ellie POV
I watched the teen walk off. I looked down and sipped more wine.
"Ellie? Is everything ok? What was that all about?" Kimmy asked
"I just, my kids. They've, they've been through a lot in their past. I don't know what exactly has happened to them. Lizzie mentioned she's been hurt by adults. I don't know what that means exactly." I explain . I feel tears in my eyes. Kim places a hand on my arm
"I'm sorry, they'll tell you when their ready I'm sure."
"I feel so helpless. I wish that they never went through anything bad. But it seems that they've been through hell and back. I mean their mom was a crack head who got their house on fire. And they've bounced around so many foster homes."
Kimmy just rubs my arm offering support.

Time goes by and she leaves.

I walk to Lizzie's room. She's playing a song in her ukulele.
"Hey, can I listen?"
"Oh uh sure."
Lizzie turns her chair and I sit on her bed.
"Do you sing?" I ask
"Oh um, yeah I guess." She smiles
She starts strumming and already she's really good. She then starts to sing and her voice is beautiful.
She messes a chord up and decides to stop
"Ah! Dammit!" She expresses
"You have such an amazing voice! You're so talented Lizzie!" I say in awe
"Awe thanks!"
I smile and watch her, after a while she notices and looks up at me
"Are you ok? What was up earlier?" I decide to go for it and just ask. Lizzie just stares at me. I can see the inner conflict she is having. She clenches her jaw and pretends to clean up around her so that she can put away her ukulele.
"It's ok, you can tell me." I say, I become eager to know.
"Ok well, I saw a previous foster in your yearbook" she said quietly
"Wait really? Who?" I say, I said it excitedly. But I quickly realized it wasn't a good thing because she look at me with pure confusion.
"Oh um" I said awkwardly
"Steven Peterson.." Lizzie said tight lipped
That name. He was an average student. He hung out with popular kids. I don't remember much about him really. Lizzie walked past me, leaving her room.
"Hold up kiddo." I say as I grab her arm, she jerks away quickly
"Let go!" Lizzie jerks her arm out of my hold
"Wait!" I say back, I start to feel helpless
"Just, ugh!" Lizzie whines like the teenager she is
"Lizzie! Don't you walk away from me!" I try to reason with her
She stops and turns on her heel to turn to me.
"Ok good, if you don't want to talk about it, you can tell me, but you can't just storm off like that. It's rude." I explain
"Ok fine. I don't want to talk about it." She huffs and walls away. Pete and I have been getting better at this whole parenting thing and we've been working on our kids behavior. I think it's slowly working. Lizzie isn't as pissy as she used to be towards us. Juan opens up to us more and he doesn't apologize as much for the little things. Lita, she doesn't view Lizzie as a mom figure anymore. She doesn't listen to Lizzie's orders. Which makes Liz mad, I can understand why, but they're sisters and it's time they start acting like it. The little improvements mean the most.

I get up from Lizzie's bed and head over to work on design plans. Pete should be coming home soon.