 18. flustered
"Mam! Please, come on! Come on, come on, please?"
Clara covered her face with her one free hand, skittering forward as she was being tugged and pushed by her children. Marcus and Lucy had recently begun to team up for nearly everything in their life, and it seemed that the holidays were strengthening their efforts. Marcus tugged strongly on her hand and Lucy pushed as hard as she could into the back of Clara's legs. It wasn't like she wasn't trying to move, or go where they wanted, it was just---no, okay, she definitely did not want to go where they wanted her to go.
"You two do it!" Clara cried out when they finally shoved her into the living room. She stared miserably at her husband, who was strumming lazily on his guitar. Emmet seemed particularly amused at the scene, and Lucy rushed across the room and scrambled up onto the piano bench. "I don't want to sing!"
"Mama, you gotta," Lucy chirped, flinging the cover off the keys with relative ease. Emmet lurched forward to make sure her fingers didn't get caught, but the little girl was already playing up and down a scale of notes. "Daddy and I just gots it perfect."
"And I'm the conductor!" Marcus shouted proudly, pulling over a stool and standing on top, "And a conductor doesn't sing, he conducts, so you got to sing!"
"Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!" the children began to chant, and Emmet simply shrugged and used the body of his guitar to rap a drum roll. Clara's fingers twisted in her fists and she wondered where they had gotten the idea that she could sing. Never, ever, ever did she sing in front of people! Well, there was once---but no! One of Clara's biggest fears was sounding like a train wreck, and she had been so happy to find that Emmet was completely at ease with it. He could sing the lullabies and stupid songs children loved. All she had to do was clap along.
"I---"
"I'll sing with you," Emmet provided, moving over on the bench to give her some room. Clara hesitated before hurrying over to her husband's side, and their children shrieked with delight.
"I don't even know what song we're singing---"
"SILVER BELBYS!" Marcus and Lucy shouted immediately, and Marcus jumped down from his stool.
Clara felt her face go a dark shade of red, and she turned to her husband, who was expertly avoiding her gaze. Why on earth would he tell them about that? Had he told them about---Clara quite distinctly remembered the Christmas party of 1979 she and Emmet had hosted, and how she maybe had too much to drink and how hilarious she thought 'Silver Belbys' was. And she had tried to block it out, but she was also immediately reminded of the public rendition of the song she'd burst into at the party.
"I haven't heard that song in years," she said through a fake smile toward her husband. "I can't even think of how long it's been..."
"How old are you Lucy?" Emmet asked, causing his daughter to throw up five fingers, "Five! So...you haven't heard it in five years and nine or so months?"
Clara punched Emmet hard in the arm, earning a laugh from her husband and confused looks from her children.
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