“Geoff Carter, you are so mean. Give those back right now. Those are my favorite shoes!” Tori Koenig yelled as she clambered down the staircase of her uncle and aunt’s home.
A tow headed streak flashed past the adults as they sat by the table on the patio. The children had finished their pizza and had gone upstairs to play, while the adults finished their own pizza and beer in peace and quiet. Tori was close on the heels of her cousin, with Robbie right behind.
Melissa yelled for them to stop as Geoff ran onto the pool deck. Stopping on a dime, Geoff glanced at his mother and quickly tossed Tori’s pink slippers toward his younger brother. “Here, Robbie.” The younger brother reached for the slippers but the toss was too short. They both watched with giggles as Tori’s slippers plopped into the swimming pool and disappeared below the sparkling blue water.
Tori gasped in shock. Her face turned a brilliant red and she screamed in anguish. In two quick steps, she was in front of Geoff, placing her hands on his shoulders she pushed with all her might.
Unprepared for the attack, Geoff toppled over, landing head first on the pool deck. Skull met pavement with a crack that was heard by all. With her tiny hands on her hips, Tori kicked her fallen cousin.
“My slippers are ruined….you BRAT! I hope you die!”
Robbie’s expression quickly changed to horror. Quickly, Alan and Melissa leaped from theirs chairs and ran to examine the screaming Geoff. On their heels, Aunt Helena knelt beside her bleeding nephew. “Keep his neck straight.” She said as she looked at his head.
Tori, still upset over the loss of her favorite slippers, stamped her foot and kick her cousin again.
“John!” Helena yelled, “Get her away from him!”
John reached Tori just as she drew back for another kick. “No!” He shouted in a volume that rattled the windows. His large hand reached for her arm and pulled her back.
Robbie was still staring at the fallen Geoff. When he noticed a trail of blood he began to scream, “He’s dead you’ve kilt him! You kilt my bruther! You are Cruella Koenig!” With that said, Robbie burst into tears.
Grandpa Robert got out of his chair and lifted the crying Robbie as Melissa, Alan and Helena continued to examine the fallen Geoff. Robert took the crying Robbie over to his chair and sat down to comfort his namesake. Suddenly, he felt a tug on his sleeve. He turned to find two-year-old Sammy, white as a sheet with fright. “Is he dead, Grammpy?” He said his little voice filled with awe. Robert moved Robbie over to one side of his lap and gathers up the shaken Sammy. He turned to Susan and said, “What do I do?”
Susan had picked up the fretful Susie who echoed the emotion of all the crying of her brothers and cousin. Susan lifted the baby to her shoulder and patted her softly. “Why don’t you take them inside and assure them that Geoff’s not dead.”
She brushed past Robert, heading straight for Tori and John. John lifted Tori by the waist and moved her from the pool deck and into the family room. As he deposited Tori in the middle of the family room she stood with her hands on her hips and demanded her father retrieve her fallen slippers from the deep end.
“Now, Daddy! Get them now!” She stamped her foot for effect just as her grandmother entered with Susie.
Susan attempted to intervene but was silenced by a look from her son in law. Stunned, having never encountered John’s Commanding Look, she quietly eased back out of the room.
On the pool deck, Helena examined her bleeding nephew. “Well, I think his neck is fine but he clearly needs stitches for that gash in his head.”
Melissa gathered her crying son and comforted him while Helena and Alan left to retrieve her medical bag from the car. “Tori hurt my head Mama. She’s a meanie.” Melissa rocked him gently back and forth holding her first-born she says, “I think your Uncle John will take care of Tori. We just need to concentrate on making your owie go away.” Melissa spotted Helena through the sliding glass that led into the kitchen. Helena motioned for Melissa to bring Geoff inside.
Back in the family room, John stared intensely at his daughter. She looked impatiently at her father and stamped her foot, “Daddy! Do something!” She screeched.
John moved toward her, he picked her up and pressed her tiny body against the wall of the den. “Don’t you realize that you hurt Geoff?”
“Course I realize it Daddy. I hope he’s dead.”
“Tori!” He placed her back on the floor and knelt down in front of her. Slowly and deliberately he leaned her over his knee and with tempered force gave her three swats on her rear end. He stood her back up and looked her in the eye. Stunned, Tori stands there watching her father with wide green eyes. Very calmly and quietly, John said to his stunned daughter, “That’s a horrible…cruel thing to say. You should never ever wish something like that. I’m ashamed of you.” Tears ran down her little cheeks as she stared at her clearly disappointed father. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve never acted this badly before.”
“I hate him! He’s mean and he lives in this ugly old house where we eat off of paper plates! And my shoes are ruined and I can’t take dance lessons any more ‘cause you and Mommy are going to make us come here and live with Geoff!” Her sob came out sounding like a hiccough.
“Live with Geoff? Honey, we’ll be living at our own house. Just where we’re staying now.”
“But my room is in Houston. I don’t like it here!” Tori’s lip began to quiver and the tears coming from her eyes grew bigger.
“Don’t try that lip quivering with me young lady. I’m NOT your grandmother. Let me explain something, your mother and I are the grown-ups. What we say goes. We are moving back to Florida. I don’t expect to see any more of these type outbursts from you nor do I expect to see anymore of this unladylike behavior,” John exhaled deeply. “Now you are going to march your little self back out there and apologize to your cousin or else I’m going to feed all of your slippers to the gators and you and I will have another one of these little talks. Do you understand?”
Tori nodded, her dark curly hair waving gently; she didn’t want to have another talk like this with Daddy. “Okay then,” John said, He took her hand and opened the door of the den and led her back into the kitchen where Helena had just finished stitching Geoff’s cut.
John and Helena exchanged a look as he lead Tori over to the still crying Geoff.
Tori shuffled her feet and moved slowly toward her cousin. As she approached, Geoff clung tighter to his mother. “Tell him Tori,” Her father ordered from the other side of the room.
In a weak almost inaudible voice Tori said, “Sorry Geoff.”
Tori looked at Daddy to see if he was satisfied with her apology. Daddy didn’t look too happy. Thinking quickly, Tori added, “I promise not to do it again, Geoff.” Then she reached over and hugged him despite the fact she really wished him dead.
Helena moved to stand beside Tori but John cut her off and said, “Tori needs some time alone to think about what she’s done. She’ll be in time out for the next 30 minutes.”
“Thirty minutes?” Helena questioned,
“Yes, thirty minutes,” John took Tori by the hand and lead her from the room.
Alan, Melissa and Helena exchanged looks as they watching them leave the room. Alan picked up Geoff from Melissa lap and offered to take him upstairs to see Grandpa and change his clothes. As they left the kitchen John walked back in and patted Geoff on the back as they passed.
John looks over to his wife where she is cleaning up her medical supplies. “Helena. We need to talk.”
“John what did you do to her?” Helena asks cautiously as she rounds the bar.
“What I should have done a long time ago.” He said.
From behind him he heard his sister in law. “Amen,” she said as she left them alone.
“So talk,” Helena said and sat down at the breakfast table.
John sat across from her, still aggravated. “Did you hear what she said? She wants her cousin dead over a pair of damn shoes!” He waved his arms wildly in the air as if to emphasize his point.
Helena watched him as he continued, “She completely out of control. I’ve made up my mind, We are moving back here so that we can spend more time with her and Sammy. I’m going to quit flying all over the world to attend some silly meeting and stay home with my family.”
Quietly Helena reaches across the table and takes his hand, “What happened? In that room between you and your daughter?”
“I became the parent and she became the child.”
“John, are you sure about this?”
“I’m absolutely sure. I don’t want her to grow up to be some spoiled brat. She has such potential…I just don’t want her to waste it or grow up to be one of those nasty people that can’t cope with the real world.”
Helena slipped from her chair and moved to stand behind her husband. She rubbed his shoulders lightly and leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, “I think it’s for the best.” She said as she hugged him tightly.
“I’m glad you agree. He reached up and squeezed her arms. “And one more thing, as of tonight, she’s going back in her own bed and not in ours.”
“That must have been some talk.”
Maureen J. Long
April, 2001