“I don’t ask much of you, do I Marc?” Wendy said when she saw him sitting at a table on the back deck pounding away on the keyboard of his laptop.
Oh shit, Marc thought. What have I done or not done this time? “Is there something wrong?” Marc asked.
“Something wrong?” Wendy said, sarcastically. She then called out, “Sweetie, can you come out here for a minute?”
Melissa, Marc and Wendy’s young daughter, came running from the house onto the deck. She had a big, happy smile on her face. “Yes, Mommy,” she said.
Marc was shocked to see that Melissa’s face, clothes, and arms were covered in colorful splashes of paint. Pointing at Melissa, Wendy said, “Didn’t I ask you to keep an eye on her while I was out? Look at her, Marc. Under your not-so-watchful eye, she got into my studio and started playing with my paints as if they were finger paints and she smeared them on the canvas I’ve been working on for the past six weeks, ruining my painting and getting paint all over her skin, hair, and clothes. You obviously weren’t paying any attention to her, were you? What the hell were you doing that was so important that you didn’t know what Melissa was into? Were you writing another one of your stupid blog posts that nobody reads?”
Marc called Melissa over to him, bent down, and put his arm around her shoulder. He looked up at Wendy and said, “Look how happy our little girl looks, Wendy. We can wash the paint off of her face, arms, and out of her hair. We can try to get the paint off of her clothes, or if not, buy her some new clothes. But can you really just ignore that look of pure joy on our precious little girl’s face and still be angry with me and her? Seriously, can you?”
Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Senjuti Kundu @ Unsplash.
This, That, and the Other 