Hey, Jude

Moeata jogs down the stairs with a light bounce in his step. The smell of pancakes wafts into the air and teases his senses like fingers gently massaging his nostrils. He cannot help the deep inhale he takes. Normally, he does not eat breakfast as his older sister prompts him to do because eating a full meal after eating supper does not sit well with his stomach. His mum is also usually too hungover to make breakfast.

He does not have the time or energy to make both his lunch and breakfast before heading out to campus. Yet today, he cannot help but yearn for the plush, softness of his mother's special pancakes.

As he enters the kitchen, he frowns when instead he sees that it's Indigo in the kitchen. No surprise there.

He greets his older sister who is jamming with the spatula as if it's an electric guitar. The wild wails of her favourite band, The Beatles, come through the stereo. She doesn't even hear him acknowledging her presence and sticks her tongue out, bobbing her head up and down violently. With his eyebrows arching up, he pulls himself up onto the counter and decides that today, he might have at least two pancakes. If he can stomach it.

With an entertained frown, he glances at Indigo as she keeps strumming the spatula as if she is a rock star while simultaneously wondering if this is necessary. This early in the morning?

More loud music escapes from the speakers and fills the walls of the house. His sister has been doing this tradition ever since he was a little boy. He remembers his three year old self being frightened into the conscious world by a loud noise coming from somewhere inside the house. Now he has learned to sleep through the noise. He had to if he wanted to remain sane.

Before he knows it, he sees his mother storming into the room and before she can catch him sitting on the counter, he slides down. She does not even regard him and marches straight for his older sister who has yet to notice the extra presence in the room. She merely sticks her tongue up, holds up her curled fingers and bobs her head up and down.

"Indigo," their mum yells, folding her arms over her chest in reprimand.

Indigo doesn't hear her.

With an angry spark burning in her eyes, she heads over to the stereo and eventually, he hears the deafening silence of the house without the music floating around the entire house. His sister's jamming comes to an abrupt halt as she looks around in confusion. Indigo catches him in the kitchen, but completely disregards his presence. The only thing she cares to know is:

"Who turned off The Beatles?"

Their mother walks back into the kitchen. "I did. You woke up Judy with your loud music. When is this going to end, Indigo?"

"Probably never," he replies for his sister, rubbing a finger across his nose at the repugnant stench of smoke emitting from the cigarette pinched between his mum's fingers.

"Beatles for life," Indigo playfully exclaims, bobbing her head yet again. Tongue out again.

"Moeata, go and fetch your sister. I need to feed her now."

"I need to go to school."

"That wasn't a request," she stares at him earnestly.

Without arguing, he leaves the kitchen and jogs back upstairs to his younger sister's room. When he pushes the door open, he sees the little, human sitting in her cot with her rattle. The toy makes a hell of a ruckus. Her lips are parted as babbles escape past her mouth. With an amused smile, he surmises whose personality she has. Just like her older sister who is into loud music, their father was the same.

He hovers over her cot, his frame creating a slight shadow over her tiny body and he merely watches her for a few seconds as she plays. A soft smile touches his lips and when he's had enough of just watching her, he touches her soft hair which makes her snap her head up to see her older brother. The widened, guileless look in those hazels of hers makes his heart melt inside his chest and already he knows that he'll do anything for her.

He can already see her as she goes through the stages of her life. She will first want to fit in with the cool kids. Do things that she'll later regret in life, but without those experiences, she wouldn't grow up to be the strong-willed person he imagines her to be in her older years. She will want to rebel and date boys. Boys that their sister will interrogate on whether they love The Beatles or not.

Or maybe she will shock him.

Maybe she won't be all those things.

Maybe Jude will be the lovable girl that everyone wants to be friends with. She will joyously smile through her high school years and be popular. Not, because she's popular, but because people genuinely like her and like being around her. Maybe she will meet a boy or a girl or a non-binary person who will make her fall head over heels for them. Maybe she will get her heart broken a couple of times, and he and Indigo will comfort her through the pain.

"Mum said that I should fetch you, Jude."

He always speaks to her as if she can understand him. In his mind, he always thinks she does.

Jude continues to play with her rattle.

And sometimes he thinks she does not understand him at all.

"Nana," she babbles, looking up at him.

"Moeata," he corrects her.

She pauses and then smiles a gummy smile. "Nana."

He reaches into the cot and picks her up so that she is standing upright. He does not let her go, because she is too young to balance on her own. He notices her grip tightening around the rattle as if she's afraid that he is going to snatch her precious toy away. Even with the noise it was making, he would not dare take her rattle away. The thing has been in her mouth and so much saliva has dribbled all over it. He can never bring himself to touch it.

"No, Jude. It's me-ata. Me-ata. Can you say Moeata, Judy?"

Again, Jude frowns in bemusement and says, "Nana."

"Moe," she cuts him off by slapping him on the cheek with her rattle. He's stunned for a second and when she giggles at the look on his face, he admits defeat and says, "Okay. Okay. It's nana."

"Nana."

"Mm-hmm. Nana." He picks her up and balances her on his waist. "Let us go get you some food, okay?"

"Ngnfheg." The rattle is back in her mouth and his nose wrinkles in disgust.

Once he has entered the kitchen, he tries to pass Jude over to his mother, but he frowns when she raises her finger, gesturing for him to give her a second. He does not miss the glass of wine in her hand. When she takes a huge gulp of the liquor without even flinching, he blinks. Hesitantly, he lets her take Jude out of his hands and to the other room to put her in her foldable dining table chair.

He doesn't know why he's so surprised at her actions. He has seen her drink an entire bottle of vodka without even stopping for a breath.

That was the first time he ever had to call Indigo back from work to help him drive their mother to the hospital when she inevitably passed out in the lounge. He would have called Delores, but he didn't want his friend to see his mother like that. Delores has seen tipsy Mrs Daughtler. He has never seen a passed out, barely breathing, heart barely beating Mrs Daughtler. Only he and Indigo have had the pleasure of seeing that.

He's so glad that Jude is too young to comprehend anything.

Immediately when he hears another Beatles song coming from Indigo's phone, he glances up at his sister and shakes his head. She asks him how many pancakes he wants, and he gestures with his fingers that he just wants two for now. She, whilst dishing up for him, begins to sing along to the song. Her words don't correspond with the song. Some of the words are either mumbled or are just malapropism.

When his mother shuffles back into the kitchen with a glower directed at Indigo, he stares at her widely.

"Indigo, how many times do I have to tell you to turn that shit off?"

Indigo ignores her as his mum saunters past him into the kitchen. She stands there with her hip popped out and again, she breathes in the fumes from her cigarette. He should be used to the smell by now but he's not. He's really not.

A yawn leaves his mouth. Blinking the tears away, he looks up in time to see his mum looking at him tiredly. He just shrugs. What does she want him to do? It's Indigo. She does not listen to anyone. She does whatever she wants to do. When he finally gets his two pancakes, he stands up to fetch the syrup from the fridge. If there even is syrup. He smiles in satisfaction when he sees it.

That's when they hear the light whimpers coming from the other room until a loud wail fills the entire house.

"Great, now you have made Judy cry. Why are you even playing music? Why can't you just peacefully make the pancakes like I asked you to do?" his mother yells angrily.

"I'm making the pancakes, aren't I?" Indigo argues.

He makes his way back to his stool to quickly eat his pancakes before Delores arrives. He does not want anything to do with this argument. It's stupid.

"Why does it matter that I'm playing music? Besides, I'm pretty sure Judy is crying, because she's a baby and that's what babies do. They cry. Maybe she's just hungry."

"Moeata," she calls him loudly.

He pauses with a forkful of pancakes in his mouth, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

"Oh, my goodness! I am actually gonna lose it." When she rubs a hand across her face in frustration, his eyes watch her cautiously. What has he done now? "Didn't I tell you to make the fuckin' porridge for your sister?"

"No."

"I did."

"No, you didn't. You can ask Indigo. You said to go and fetch Judy from upstairs. That's all you told me to do and I did it. You did not say anything about making the porridge." Nonetheless, he gets up to make the stupid porridge.

"Yeah, well maybe you'd be able to hear me if your sister wasn't blasting that shitty music throughout the entire apartment. What will the neighbours think? That I'm in the business of running a fuckin' shebeen?"

"The Beatles are not shitty, okay? They are the greatest musicians to have ever graced the world."

He releases a noise of contemplation as he boils some water in the kettle. Whilst that is happening, he makes an effort to sneak in a few bites from the stacked pancakes on the island. They are actually not bad. "I don't know about the greatest musicians, but yeah, they're pretty good."

"Go suck a dick," Indigo says to him with a bit of a playful smirk.

He chuckles in amusement under his breath.

"Indigo, don't tell him to go and suck a dick," their mother scolds her before looking at him and saying seriously, "You, don't suck dick. For anything. Money. Favours. Love. Just don't do it."

"Thanks for the unwanted advice." He nods in mock appreciation.

"Mum, I hate to break it to you, but can you not hear Judy screaming her lungs out in the other room?" Indigo questions, putting another pancake on his plate. He shakes his head to refuse the pancake, but as usual, she ignores him and does whatever she wants.

"You have some nerve. Turn that fuckin' stupid music off right now!"

"It's not stupid."

"Whatever," he chimes in before another argument can occur between the two. "Just turn it off."

"How about no, cocksucker?" Indigo replies to him and he cannot help but be amused at the back-and-forth banter between the two of them.

"Indigo, I will knock your two front teeth out. I swear to God. Do not fuckin' test me."

"Just turn the fucking music off," he mumbles through the pancake in his mouth. The mumble masks the chuckle of humour in his voice.

Indigo grabs her phone off the counter and then finally, silence. "There. It's turned off. Are you both happy? Can we all just cool our tits now? Take a breather."

"Kind of hard to take a breather when a baby is wailing in the other room," he adds, multi-tasking over to the kitchen counter to make Jude's porridge.

"Oh, my fuckin' God," his mother mutters under her breath irritably and goes to check on their youngest sibling. "Moeata, bring the porridge in here when you're done making it."

With a glower, Indigo whispers loud enough for him to hear, but quiet enough that their mother who is out of earshot, would not be able to hear her, "You're a virgin." 

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure it is. Where are your headphones?"

"I'm gonna use them later at school."

"You are actually a genuine cocksucker."

"Is that the only insult you can throw in my face?" he muses and just as he is about to finish with the porridge, he hears the door opening in the other room.

His stomach clenches in apprehension and he grasps the spoon in a more attacking way. Waiting, he prepares himself to stab someone today. He is prepared to stab someone with a spoon. In the gut. He does not know how. Where there's a will though, there's a way. The door is pushed open and instantly he relaxes when he recognises the familiar voices going back and forth.

"Alright, if my plan is so shit then come up with a better plan." Nicholas' voice is the first he hears. "How are you gonna convince her?" 

"Always nagging me." He's pretty sure that Delores is supposed to whisper that, but if he was able to hear him then he is pretty sure Nicholas' hearing is just as good, if not better. He hears a loud thwack and a groan of pain.

"Hey, Mrs Daughtler," Nicholas greets. "Hey, Judy."

"Nana."

With the small bowl of porridge, now no longer too hot for his little sister, he walks into the room where his mother sits with his sister and his two friends.

"Mum," he says awkwardly, handing her the bowl after she has put the cigarette down on the ash pan.

"How is your day so far, Mrs Daughtler?"

"Fine for the most part, Delores. Thanks for asking."

"How come you did not ask me how my day was so far?" Nicholas muses, indignantly looking up at Delores who rolls his eyes.

Delores then glances up at him to see an amused grin on his face and asks eloquently, "How was your day, Nicholas?" 

"Well, I started the day—"

"Here to pick up, Moeata?" Indigo voices musingly.

Before Nicholas can describe his morning, thankfully, Indigo enters the room with a plate of what seems to be four pancakes and Nicholas glances back at her in irritation for cutting her off.

Indigo looks up after taking a large bite of her pancake and he immediately sees the resemblance between them. The rowdy curls are a hereditary gene they got from their father. His dark raven eyes were also passed down to them from their father no doubt. The only thing which says that he's his mother's child is his light complexion and his thin lips.

"Yeah." Delores nods. "We should probably get going. Nicholas took his time in the bathroom today."

"I was fixing my eyebrows. There was no way in hell I was going out looking like… well," Nicholas' eyes find him and he says, "like Mo for example."

He rolls his eyes and runs back into the kitchen to fetch his bag. Before leaving, he kisses Jude on the head. This time around, she does not call him Nana as she has porridge in her mouth. She is too focused on her rattle to care to know that her brother is wishing her farewell. Before they can even step foot outside the house, Delores brings him to a halt by hanging his arm over his shoulder.

"Oh, Moeata might be back home late tonight, Mrs Daughtler. It's Brandy's birthday and she's our friend so… we were invited," Delores informs his mother much to his disapproval. He does not want to go to Brandy's party tonight. Delores knows that. That is why he's telling his mum.

"Okay. As long as you bring him back. Safely."

"Of course."

"I mean it, Delores. You kill my kid," she points at him with her cigarette and earnestly says to him with a dangerous look, "I'll kill you."

"Jesus, Mum."

As they're leaving the house, his mum yells, "Remember boys, abstinence is key." Ironically, she takes a long drag of her cigarette after saying that.

Once the door is shut, Delores and Nicholas tease him about his mum's words and call him a secret sex maniac behind closed doors. He does not let their words get to him. They are both clowns.