Chapter 35
by Dan Kirk
“Lord, help us to grow once again as a family, together under your protection and…” Dad’s voice droned on and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes behind my closed eyelids. We were standing in the driveway of the house on
Papa had taken Mom to see the house a few days after he and I had toured it with Mr. Rule. She’d come back to Nanny’s with tears in her eyes, and kept hugging Papa all night long. The gruff older man had gone to bed that night with a smile on his face that he just couldn’t get rid of, and I laughed to myself when I saw Nanny close their bedroom door. They almost always kept that door open just a crack, and I could only think of one reason why the door would be closed.
Papa got lucky that night.
The next morning he’d been whistling over breakfast before heading off to ‘take care of business’. My Nanny was a ‘good Christian woman’ and didn’t believe in sex except for making babies, but she’d been known to make exceptions, and apparently what Papa was doing for my family qualified as one of those exceptions. Not even Mrs. Mandragorn had been able to kill the good feeling I had that day.
Mom had taken Dad to see the house the next weekend, and apparently the two of them had sat on the back patio, overlooking the river and had a very long talk. Later that night, Mom had shared what they’d talked about with Nanny, and I’d shamelessly eavesdropped from the hallway while they talked in the living room.
“I told him if he ever touched another woman again I’d cut his you-know-whats-off and stuff them in his mouth before I divorced him.” Mom told Nanny with a savage edge in her voice. Nanny had made some approving sounds I couldn’t quite make out and Mom continued speaking. “We also talked about what he’s going to do with his life, how he’s going to make enough money to support us. He still wants to be a preacher, but for now he’s going to take that job Papa offered him. It’s only for three weeks, but Papa was saying he had an idea about what Dave can do after that.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into that man.” Nanny said with a fond edge to her voice. “Did he tell you how he got that money?”
“No.” Mom answered and I had started to get nervous.
“He told me little Davey told him who was going to win the Super Bowl and he made a bet on that.” Nanny had told my mother, this time with an edge of disapproval in her voice. Sure, she liked the slot machines, but betting on sports was evil. “Dad won’t tell me how much he won, but he put sixty-thousand dollars in my bank account.”
“You’re kidding!” Mom had exclaimed. “If he gave you that much, you know it’s got to be a lot more.”
“Yes, and he’s not the only one who won money.” Nanny had said next and I did gulp. “He made a bet for Davey too since Davey had given him the scores. Dad’s set up a separate bank account for Davey and he doesn’t want Dave to know about it at all. From what he said, Davey’s paying for half the house.”
“My son?” Mom’s voice had been weak at that. “That sneaky old fart! He had me sign some papers the other day! I thought he was setting up a college fund for Davey! Do you think it’s okay? That Papa won’t…”
“He’s doting over Davey like he never did over his own sons.” Nanny had said ruefully. “The only thing I worry about with little Davey and him is he’s going to teach Davey too many of his bad habits.”
“If you’re sure…” Mom had said.
“I’m sure.” Nanny had assured her. “Besides, he’s putting my name on Davey’s accounts. I insisted that I be able to watch what he’s doing with that money to make sure he’s not screwing the boy over.”
“Okay.” Mom said with some resignation. “I can see why he wouldn’t want Dave to have access to that money, and I won’t mention it to him.”
“…in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.” Dad’s voice ending the prayer called me back to the present and I said a hurried ‘Amen’ just in time. Dad had a look of nervousness on his face as he looked at each of us before leading us into the house. We already had the keys, but the paperwork would take another two weeks to close and we couldn’t move in until the paperwork was done. The morning was a chilly one, and a layer of fog hung over the river while the sky itself was overcast and dreary.
“You’re really going to love this house.” Mom said to Jenny as the two of them headed into the house. Sure enough, my little sister took off running as soon as she was inside, going from one room to another with her blond pig tails flying behind her. Mom followed after her and Dad made a little motion with his hand as he headed towards the back patio.
The back patio of the house was huge and hung over the river bank. On the left was where the pool would be, once it was finished in the spring. It wasn’t a huge one, but it was more than enough for playing in and a little exercising. On the right side of the patio was an overhang that would be a great place for a picnic table and barbecue grill. During a party, the patio probably could hold fifty people or more. From the way Dad walked all the way to the back railing and leaned over it, similar to how Sean and I had done the first time I’d seen the house, I figured this would be where a lot of ‘talks’ were done in this house.
“You and your Papa seem to be getting on well.” Dad said after I’d joined him at the railing. I’d intentionally left a foot of space between us. It might be irrationally, but standing within easy reach of him when there was an eighty foot drop right below us was not something I felt comfortable with just yet.
“He’s…he’s not that bad.” I stumbled looking for words that wouldn’t offend Dad but would be true to Papa.
“You seem so different since we moved back here.” Dad said, and from his words I knew he was already mentally re-writing why we came back to
“I’ve had a lot of growing up to do.” I said with a little more force than I maybe should have.
“I’m sorry.” Dad said, totally shocking me and I turned to face him. There were glimmers in his eyes as if tears were there, wanting to form. “What I did, it was wrong, son. I should never have put you in that type of situation, should never have blamed you for my own wrongdoing.”
“Thank you.” I said softly, accepting his apology. It wasn’t quite everything he should be apologizing for, but I also knew that it wasn’t to me that he had to apologize for fucking another woman. That apology was to Mom.
“I want us to be a real family again.” Dad said softly, continuing on slowly. “Do you think we can be?”
“Of course.” I answered quickly, and with confidence. That seemed to surprise him and I also realized that he wasn’t quite talking to me like I was a little kid. Sure, he was talking to me as his son, and as someone a lot younger than him, but he was actually talking with me as if I was a teenager, not an eight-year-old.
“You sound pretty sure of that.” Dad said with a wry little smile. “I wish I could be as sure. Your grandfather keeps wanting to poke his head in on our business. This job he offered me, I didn’t want to take it but he kept pushing.”
“He’s just being protective.” I said quickly. “Once he sees that things are going good for us, he’ll back off.”
“You sound sure about that.” Dad said slowly and I looked back over the river before responding.
“I’ve gotten to know him.” I said as an answer and there was silence between us for a moment.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate him trying to get me a good job with the Carpenters.” Dad broke the silence and I felt a small thrill of hope that maybe I could work this conversation the way I needed it to go. “God has called me though, and I still feel that.”
“Have you ever thought that you’re being called to a different kind of service?” I asked and could see the floored expression on his face out of the corner of my eye.
“What makes you think that?” Dad asked sharply.
“I just remember some of the things you’ve talked about, how society’s got all these problems and not enough good people to fix them.” I said quickly, almost stumbling over the need to get the words out in a way that would make the right difference. This was the message that my father from the last timeline had given me for the father of this timeline. “Crimes getting bad, people are getting divorces so easily now, unions that use to be focused on representing their members are more worried about keeping political power than doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and that whole Watergate thing. You could probably make a bigger difference in politics than from behind the pulpit.”
“I…I’ve never really thought about that.” Dad said softly, and I turned my head so that I could see the thoughts moving behind his eyes. “It takes a lot of money for that though, and I’m not going to be asking your Papa for any more help.”
“You might not have to do that.” I said softly and he looked at me sharply again. “I heard him talking to this tax attorney that works for the union. He said there’s money out there for people who might want to run for office, like the State Assembly, if they’ve got the right message.”
“What kind of message?” Dad asked and I knew he was hooked now. Dad had always wanted most to ‘make a difference’ and the siren call of politics was something that had always been just below the skin. He might say he’d never really given it serious thought, but that was because his thoughts always stopped when he couldn’t figure out a way to make the kinds of money needed to run for political office.
“Getting corruption out of government, supporting union members while calling for reforms would be okay too.” I started and then went down a whole laundry list that I knew would appeal to him. When I was done, he was looking at me with slightly wide eyes.
“Your mother told me the school wants to move you up a grade.” He said at last. “I’m thinking maybe they should just move you up two whole grades. When did you get so smart?”
“I’ve always been smart.” I told him with a shrug. “I’ve just had more time to read the books at Papa’s house.” That was the truth, in part at least. Papa had more books lining the walls of the family room than most small town libraries. They ranged from books on home medicine to high politics, to military matters and as a kid in the first timeline I’d spent many, many weeks reading them over and over again. Dad knew those books were there, and they could cover a lot of the mystery about my intelligence.
“I think we might want to give the idea of you skipping a few grades some more thought.” Dad said in a firm tone and I almost panicked. That would ruin everything! Well, it wouldn’t ruin everything, just the most important personal reasons for going back in time.
“Please, I don’t think I like that idea.” I said to Dad who frowned at me.
“Why not?” He asked in a dangerous tone, letting me know he was feeling a bit of anger. I had to be careful here.
“Being in the regular grade won’t stop me from learning extra stuff.” I told him carefully. “I just don’t want to end up in classes with bigger kids who won’t understand why I’m smarter than them and you know how much trouble that can cause. If I’m in the grade I’m supposed to be in, I can be like a normal kid, have friends my own age, and be happy. There’s no reason you can’t get me other books so I’m learning all the stuff I can, and when I get older and finish high school, I can go to a really good college and get a degree and stuff.”
“It sounds like you’ve actually thought this out.” Dad said after a moment of thought. He was nodding his head in approval. “At least you’ve got a reason for not wanting to get advanced in school. I’ll think about it and we’ll talk about it some more.”
“Okay.” I said with a grateful smile and he reached out to ruffle my hair. I was feeling a lot more comfortable with him now and didn’t back away as he moved closer to rest an arm around my shoulders.
“You’ve been doing pretty good every time we play catch.” Dad said with a hint of a smile in his voice. “You know little league is starting tryouts here soon. Would you like to play on a team this year?”
“That’d be cool!” I said much more enthusiastically than I felt inside. Sure, I enjoyed sports, but football was something I enjoyed more than baseball. Still, at this age, Baseball was a lot easier to play, and I knew that to Dad it was a big deal. He’d played the sport as a kid, and all through high school. It was something he loved, and this would be something that he could ‘win’ in our little discussion, something he’d talked me into doing instead of the other way around.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Dad said with a genuine smile as he hugged me close to him. Tears almost formed in my eyes as I felt the danger of not having a good father in this timeline start to recede. Things looked like they were going much better, all of a sudden. “I know we haven’t moved up here yet, but I’ll get you signed up for the
“That sounds neat.” I agreed with a rush just as a squeal of laughter floated out onto the back patio. I turned around to see Jenny running out of the house, and almost panicked as she got too close to the half-built pool area. Mom rushed out behind her and pulled her away from the edge just in time.
“Davey, Davey, you’ve gotta see the upstairs!” Jenney squealed as Dad and I sauntered across the patio to where they were standing. “We each get our own rooms and I don’t have to share with you and Mom says we can turn the big room on the end into a play room and we can have friends stay over in the guestroom and there’s this big fireplace downstairs and we can…”
“I think someone likes their new house.” Dad said with heavy tone of fondness as my little sister listed off all the things she liked about the new house. Dad leaned over and planted a little kiss on her forehead and she giggled in that way little girls did.
“Why can’t we move in today?” Jenny asked and I laughed along with my parents.
“We have to finish the paperwork.” Mom explained and Jenny scrunched up her nose at the word ‘paperwork’.
“Ugh, I hate papers.” Jenny said, getting another round of laughter. “Are there any other girls near us?”
“We’ll have to wait and see when we move in.” Dad said and then got a firm look on his face as he thought about something. “We’re going to have to remember that there’s certain rules about this place.
“I will, I mean I won’t.” Jenny stumbled and I laughed again. That got me a slightly stern look from Dad.
“That goes for you too, son.” Dad said and I nodded.
“You’re both going to have a lot of chores to do in order to help keep the house clean.” Mom added and Jenny scrunched up her nose again at the word ‘chores’.
“Do we get an allowance?” I asked and Mom gave me a hard stare for a moment.
“Jenny will.” Mom said sternly. “I don’t think you need one, do you?”
“No, I’m fine.” I told her meekly, and noticed the odd look Dad gave the two of us. He’d eventually find out, I knew, and at least as long as I didn’t step over certain lines, Mom wouldn’t make too much of a fuss, and that would make the difference with Dad, most likely.
“Davey, why don’t you and Jenny go decide which rooms you both want?” Dad said quietly and I nodded, grabbing my excited sister’s hand and letting her drag me back into the house while my parents went to the back railing and leaned over it for their ‘talk’. Yep, that railing was definitely going to be the scene of many private conversations in this house.
“I love this house!” Jenny squealed as she ran up the staircase with its oak railing.
“I do too.” I told her as we reached the second floor and she dragged me to the room immediately next to what would be the master bedroom.
“I like this room.” Jenny announced and I felt a twinge of fear. I’d wanted this bedroom for mine, mostly because I didn’t want her next to Mom and Dad’s room. My father was still my father, and the events of the first timeline were never far from my surface thoughts. The headache that had been gone for the last week suddenly returned and I winced slightly.
“Why?” I asked her carefully.
“’Cause it has two windows.” Jenny said and I realized she was correct. The two rooms were almost identical in size, but this one had two windows while the other only had one larger window.
“That’s cause the window in the other room is bigger.” I said carefully and she scrunched her face up again. It really was her favorite expression and she dragged me to the other room quickly.
“You’re right.” She said with a frown. “It really is bigger.”
“This room’s also closer to the playroom.” I told her and relaxed when a look of consternation filled her face.
“I want this room.” She said firmly and I resisted the urge to shout in triumph.
“You sure?” I asked her and she nodded.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to take the other room.” I said with a strong hint of defeat in my voice and she shouted in victory. My little sister always did like winning an argument with her big brother.
“Let’s look at the play room.” She said quickly, dragging me into the large room at the other end of the hallway. Jenny immediately went to the side of the room facing the back of the house. It had two windows on that wall, and two more on the far side, facing the edge of the property. Jenny spent a moment looking at the room and immediately began tracing an invisible line that ran from the edge of the leftmost back window and included all four of the room’s window. When she was done, she turned to face me and smiled. “My side, that’s your side.”
“You get all the windows.” I complained with a bit of a whine in my voice, and we proceeded into a heated argument about how the room would be divided between us. While we argued, I wasn’t an adult in a child’s body, but rather an older brother arguing with his spoiled brat of a sister. It felt damn good, and the headache that had started to form disappeared almost immediately.
“We could hear both of you all the way outside.” Dad’s stern voice ended the argument just as I was shouting at my sister at the top of my lungs. For her part, she had her arms crossed, a petulant look on her face and was stomping her foot every time she spoke.
“Davey won’t let me have all the windows!” Jenny wailed, tears forming on her face as if on queue.
“Don’t you think he should get at least one?” Mom said and I noticed that both of them were smiling and were still holding hands. That gave me a warm feeling inside and I relented.
“She can have them all if she really wants.” I said with a sigh and my sister crowed in triumph, immediately redrawing the lines. She was even magnanimous in her victory, giving me slightly more space in the L-shape that would be my area while the rectangle of hers included all four windows.
“You’re a good big brother.” My mom told me as she dropped Dad’s hand and came into the room to ruffle my hair. Her words made me feel good, and Jenny’s look of satisfaction made me feel a little better. I was already planning what to do with my area . I could put a lot of bookshelves in the narrow part of the area, while some other things would go great in the bigger area towards the back of the room.
“I still win.” Jenny said indignantly and I joined my parents in laughing at her petulant expression.
*~*~*~*~*
“You sure you want to be doing this, boy?” Papa asked me and I nodded quietly at him before he let out a sigh and opened up the safe he hid in the garage. To my surprise, he’d given me the combination last week ‘just in case’. Grumbling to himself about wasting good money, he handed over my checkbook to me and closed the safe before moving the broken television back over its hiding place. “Well I’m going with you. Lord knows if I don’t your mom will buy stuff that looks pretty and won’t last a year.”
“Okay.” I said while hiding a grin. With any luck, he’d be able to keep Mom’s spending spree down. Most of my money that hadn’t been set aside in stocks or for certain other purposes was tied up in long-term CD’s earning some good interest. Those CD’s would actually bring in more money than Dad would make each year if he made it into the State Assembly (of course, that didn’t include the money he’d raise in campaigning, and be able to siphon off for various purposes allowed by current laws). One large chunk had been set aside for Dad’s first campaign.
Campaign financing reform passed two years ago after Watergate made it more difficult for us to just give him that money. Instead, we had to set it up as a no-interest loan through Steve, our tax attorney, and the Certified Public Accountant he’d referred us to last week. Dad had finally made his decision to run for the State Assembly after we’d attended a Republican Central Committee meeting for the county and he now had forty thousand dollars of my money in his campaign account.
Actually, he had a bit more already from various donations that had been made by other people, including both Nanny and Papa, as well as his mother who was absolutely ecstatic that her son was now running for public office. She’d even stopped bad-mouthing my mother now that they were getting back together, and at least partially out of fear that if she did say anything bad about them, word would get out and hurt her son’s campaign. No matter her reasons, it was good to be able to spend five minutes in her company without her telling me how evil my mother was.
Dad didn’t know the ‘start-up’ loan had come from me. He was under the assumption that it was coming from various unions and other groups, and we made sure that no one contradicted that assumption. In fact, today he was at a local Police union’s offices doing a candidate interview, trying to get their endorsement. He was the only Republican challenging the Democratic incumbent, and a lot of people were interested in taking a look at this virtual stranger that was daring to challenge the status quo in
After we’d toured the house as a family, Mom had been spending the last few weeks griping about how none of our furniture was really nice enough for the new house. She had a point, I knew, because we were already planning four house parties that would double as fundraisers. Most of the old furniture we’d brought from
“You ready to go?” Mom asked as Papa and I reentered the house from the garage. Next week was our move-in date for the new house and she wanted everything to be bought, paid for, and delivered right on time. Her shopping list, I saw as she put it into her purse without waiting for an answer, was nearly four pages long and the checkbook in my jeans pocket already felt empty.
“Jenny, let’s get a move on!” Mom shouted out and my sister came running out of the bedroom we still shared in Nanny’s house with one of her new Barbie dolls in her hand.
“Mom, can I bring Barbie?” My little sister asked with all the seriousness a five year old could muster.
“Just don’t drop her.” Mom warned my sister who nodded gravely. Nanny came around the corner, all dressed up and ready to go as well. There was some juggling as Mom decided she wanted to take her new 1976 red Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, complete with Hurst Hatches and eight-track player. Papa had bought it for her at the cheap price of only $5,860 and I kept on praying that she wouldn’t kill herself in the thing. Jenny went with her, and I managed to pile into Nanny’s Pinto hatchback with Nanny and Papa. Nanny never let him drive her car just as he never let her drive his van.
The first stop of the day was at mom’s new job, an Ethan Allen furniture store. Naturally, she’d spent the entire week going through everything they had in stock. Upon entering the store, she grabbed the sales person she liked the best. Like most salesmen, he worked off of commission and just about had a heart attack as mom led him around the store marking off all the furniture she wanted to purchase. Knowing how much she made, he tried to ask how she was going to afford all this when Papa told him not to worry about things like money.
Sure, Papa could say that when it wasn’t his money being spent.
When it came time to pick out the bedroom furniture for my sister and for me, Mom was actually kind enough to ask our opinions. Sure, she hadn’t bothered with asking us about any of the other couches, coffee tables, armchairs, side tables, a huge office desk for dad, book shelves, or any of the other stuff she’d already ordered, but she did ask if I wanted a big bed or a small bed, and if I wanted tall chests or shorter ones. Jenny got herself a beautiful canopy bed that nearly had her in tears when she realized she was really getting it.
Four hours and twelve thousand dollars later, we moved on to the next store where Mom proceeded to buy four thousand dollars in decorations, pictures, mirrors, and all those little knickknacks that made a house into a home. Now that she’d spent over half of my available cash, she dragged us to the new Vintage Fair Mall just down the street in north
Besides, what else was I going to spend the money on right now?
“Dad, why don’t you take Davey to the boy’s section?” Mom said with a smile that I was already coming to dread. It was the same smile she’d had on her face at both the previous stores, and when Papa had taken her shopping for her new car. “He needs at least ten new outfits for everything from school to formal functions. Make sure he gets at least one good suit.”
“Don’t forget underwear.” Nanny advised Papa who just shook his head.
“We’ll find you when we’re ready to pay for everything.” Mom said with a sweet smile, ruffling my hair before heading off towards the escalator. The men’s and boy’s departments were on the first floor, where we were. Their sections were all upstairs.
“This will teach you to let women know you have money.” Papa guffawed as he took me by the arm and led me towards the boy’s section of the store. It was a surreal experience shopping with him. First of all, he insisted that a good portion of my new clothes were ‘nice’ clothes. Slacks, dress shirts, polo shirts, and three different belts were the first things he looked at, and he forced me to try on each and every item. Then we headed to the more casual clothes and here he let me pick out clothes that were more ‘fashionable’ for kids my age. I personally hated bell-bottoms, with corduroys being a close second, but they were what was most available and I picked out the nicest pairs I could find. Even after we’d gone back through and picked out more underwear, socks, and t-shirts, the ladies were nowhere in sight. Knowing better than to interrupt them in their fun, we had me measured for a suit that the salesman assured us would be ready by next week.
“You might as well get yourself a hair cut while we’re here.” Papa said with a grim expression on his face. I knew he didn’t like ‘fancy’ salons like the one we found on the second floor, but he wasn’t the one getting the haircut. Tired of my mother’s ruffling my hair, I was tempted to get a high and tight, but settled for a much more sensible cut that got most of the hair off of my ears, but left me long bangs in the front.
That was when Mom found us. All three of them had arms full of clothes that I shuddered at thinking being rung up at a register. Luckily we escaped without her demanding a permanent or hair cut of her own (she’d just had one two days before at Nanny’s favorite salon). I didn’t escape at the cash register though, and shuddered at the thought of the three thousand dollars in clothes I’d just bought for her, Jenny, and myself (as well as two outfits for Nanny that I really didn’t grudge at all).
Having spent a good portion of the money I had available in my bank account, Mom decided to stop at the Orange Julius counter for a large Orange Julius, one of her favorite drinks. She had a very satisfied look on her face as she pronounced we were now ‘ready for our new house’. Sure, she might have been ready, but I was secretly wondering what the next game was I could get Papa to place a bet on, and how much we could bilk the casinos out of before they hunted us down.
I let those thoughts entertain me as we drove back to Nanny and Papa’s in a Pinto filled with clothes and other knickknacks that weren’t part of the deliveries scheduled for the next weekend. Jenny spent most of the evening trying on her new clothes, and constantly thanking Mom for getting them for her. For some reason that irked me a little, that my sister didn’t realize it had been me paying for her clothes, but I didn’t bother trying to correct her.
Mom was smiling too much.
Sunday after church, Mom and Dad stayed behind talking to the Pastor yet again, and when he dropped Mom off a few hours later, I noticed they were holding hands again. Part of me was happy at that good sign, and part of me was upset. It took me most of the afternoon thinking about it to realize that I still resented the incident with the baseball and that was something I’d have to work on over time. When Monday came around, and it was time to go back to school, I had other problems to worry about.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Mandragorn?” My voice was as soft and meek as I could possibly make it as I stood in front of her desk, the last student in the classroom on this Monday afternoon. The bell ending the school day had ended and I had stayed behind to have a little chat with my bitch of a teacher.
This was getting ridiculous. Even thinking that word caused my butt to ache like Papa had just finished giving me another spanking for talking bad about a teacher.
“What is it David?” She responded, looking up from the grade book she’d been entering the day’s grades into. Her tone made it very clear she felt I was wasting her time again. The last few weeks had been hell in her classroom and her learning that this would be my last week in her class had only made her worse. I’d expected a different reaction.
“I was wanting to know why you marked my papers down again.” I said in a rush, holding the offending paper in my hand. For the first week after she’d tricked me into doing my best on an aptitude test, I’d tried to miss a question here or there, earning myself another trip to the Principal for deliberately sabotaging my homework and tests. Since then, she’d been marking my papers with points off for anything she could find, like using poor grammar, or for not giving the full definition of a word. I’d taken to using the full dictionary definition on each and every word just to stop her taking points off of my grades.
“I would think a bright boy like you could understand what was wrong with that homework.” She said with a smirk. “The reason for you point deduction is marked quite clearly for you.”
“Yes, but you marked me down a full grade for ‘penmanship’?!” I exclaimed in a horrified voice. My handwriting had always been messy and we weren’t writing cursive, we were just printing!
“David.” She sighed, giving me a pained look at the same time. “You have resisted all of our efforts to put you into an appropriate grade level where you can learn something. I have decided that since you obviously won’t be learning anything academically in my classroom, you will learn whatever it is that I can teach you. Your penmanship is absolutely dreadful, so as long as you are a student in my classroom I will endeavor to help you improve your penmanship.”
“I understand, Mrs. Mandragorn.” I said slowly and politely. I really did understand what she was saying. The bitch hated me so much she’d find anything to criticize me about. Even the imaginary feeling of Papa’s belt across my ass didn’t phase me from thinking of her as a bitch. I turned from her desk, resisting the urge to slump my shoulders and made a very solemn vow that she’d never be able to find fault with my penmanship from this day onward.
Three hours later as I slaved over some self-imposed writing exercises, I realized just how well she’d manipulated me into this, but it was too late. I was determined that for at least the next week, my handwriting skills would be the last think she’d be able to criticize me about. Papa was still chuckling as he came home a few hours later from the new jobsite. When he asked to see my graded homework, he’d frowned for a moment at the mark-ups on it, and then chuckled even louder as he noticed the repeated practicing I’d been doing of every letter of the alphabet. When Nanny got home with Jenny (who’d been over at Aunt Fran’s with my mom’s mom) she took a look at what I was doing and cackled madly before asking if I was hungry and proceeded to start cooking dinner.
Mom’s cackle a little later reminded me so much of Nanny’s I threw my hands in the air, grabbed up my work and ran to the safety of Papa’s garage. He was even nice enough to clear off some counter space for me to use and only teased me twice about the shape of the letters I was carefully scribing onto the wide-lined gray paper. When Dad arrived for dinner, he cautiously entered Papa’s domain, and was tolerated by his father-in-law just long enough so that he could chuckle over my marked-up homework and my efforts at improving my damn ‘penmanship’!
Dinner wasn’t nearly the strained affair it could have been as Papa and Dad talked animatedly about Dad’s plans to run for office. My grandfather gave my father some great practice at listening to someone whose support he needed give him advice that he wouldn’t be wise to take. Not that Papa’s advice was necessarily bad, but it was fervently pro-union and oriented to an old-fashioned southern Democrat more than a moderate, friendly to union workers (not necessarily their union leadership mind you, but friendly to the ‘hard-working men and women’ of the unions), very pro-farmer, socially conservative Republican that could beat the sitting liberal, pro-union boss, pro-farm worker, pro-abortion, liberal incumbent Democrat. Dad had been assured after his weekend meeting that he’d be getting the Police, Sheriff, and Firefighter Union official endorsements (likely the only official Union endorsement he’d get).
After dinner, Mom and Dad went for a long walk while I helped Nanny do the dishes. She was actually slightly depressed that we wouldn’t be underfoot for much longer and we spent the evening talking about the little things that people sometimes talk about just to hear each other’s voice. Then, while she proceeded to iron every bit of clothing my sister and I owned (including my underwear and socks), my sister and I played another board game while Papa watched the primetime shows on CBS.
I’d seen those things so many times over the different timelines that I just tuned them out anymore. It’d be years before I was really interested enough in anything that could be shown on television or in the movies that I’d go out of my way to see them. Star Wars would be an exception of course, especially since I hadn’t gotten to see it on a big theater screen in over fifteen years of personal time through the last two timelines.
When nine o’clock rolled around and it was bedtime, I happily kissed my grandparents good night, kissed my parents good night (they’d returned just a minute before), and went into the bedroom I shared with my sister, grabbed my pajamas, changed in the bathroom after brushing my teeth, and then climbed into bed while my sister was still whining about the fact that she had to share a room with me for four more nights.
By Thursday, Mrs. Mandragorn had proven that she would take her vendetta against me to all new extremes when docked my vocabulary test five points because I didn’t dot an ‘i’ with a big enough dot. There was no use complaining about it, I knew. Sure, I could have made a big stink, raised a fuss about the unfairness of it all, but she wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause, and I knew that the more fuss I raised, the higher my profile would be and that was something I didn’t want.
Friday morning was a glorious day for a number of reasons. It was the first day since I came back in time when the town wasn’t blanketed by fog in the morning. By mid-morning, I was able to get my first look at the sun in weeks, and feel its wonderful caress on my skin. I got to say farewell to Mrs. Mandragorn in the early afternoon when Mom picked me up from school and checked me out of Caswell. On Monday, she’d be checking me into my new school, Sonoma Elementary.
Papa had ‘borrowed’ a trailer from Gus, the owner of the electronics store and part-time bookie, and so I spent much of the remainder of the afternoon helping him and my father load various personal belongings into the van and trailer. Dad’s gleaming new Ford F-150 already held most of the belongings he’d had over at Grandma’s. Our old furniture, except for the couch that mom loved along with a few other minor items, had already been sent to charities. The couch, which would be going in the ‘play room’, and a few other items had already been picked up by Papa and Dad while I was at school, and dropped off at the new house.
There was a brief war of looks between Papa and Dad once everything was loaded, and the war was over whom I would ride with to the new house. It felt weird having the two of them argue silently, with only their eyes giving away the fact that they were both trying to ‘lay claim’ to me. Finally, they broke when my Dad shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly as if to say ‘no big deal’ and Papa nodded slightly before looking at me and ordering me into the van with a jerk of his head. I reached out and squeezed Dad’s nearest hand briefly, earning me a slight smile from him before I rushed off to buckle myself into the van’s passenger seat.
It was mid-afternoon when we pulled into the circular driveway of the new house, and Papa was grumbling about not being able to park near the front, but rather having to park so that the trailer was just inside the driveway. Dad had gotten there right before us and was parked on the other side of the crowded driveway. A huge Ethan Allen truck was parked right in front of the house and I could see some men unloading the large dresser Mom had bought for their room. It was the same dresser I remembered her having bought in the first timeline, with two separate large mirrors. She’d kept the dresser and mirrors in the first timeline until the day she died, and no matter how hard I tried for a few moments, I couldn’t remember what had happened to them in the second timeline. In the third timeline, they’d been in their house in
“Let’s see what’s going on inside before we try to unload this stuff.” Papa said gruffly as we both got out of the van and I’d met him in front of the vehicle. Dad was already heading inside and we moved to join him. One of the first things I’d noticed was that someone had put several plastic tarps down to protect the marble tile in the entryway, as well as the rest of the floors inside the house. Most of the downstairs furniture appeared to have already been delivered, and the steady stream of men moving up and down the stairs indicated the upstairs would be done before too long. We found Mom standing in the dining room, looking at the elegant mahogany table with one finger tapping her lips and the other arm draped around her waist.
“Looking good,
“I’m not sure if I like it like this or if we should try moving it a little more towards the other wall.” My mother said and I suppressed the moan I was feeling. Trust her to already be redecorating when we hadn’t even finished moving in yet.
“Plenty of time for that later.” Papa said quickly, and I had to suppress a smile this time because it was obvious he was thinking something similar to my thoughts. “We’ve got the stuff from the house. Do you want us to bring it in now or later?”
“Davey’s room should be done in a few minutes and Jenny’s has been set up already.” Mom told him, finally looking away from the table and at us directly. She looked slightly mussed from all the moving, and a little tired, but her lips had an upward quirk to them and her eyes gleamed with happiness. “They’re just now getting to my room, so leave that stuff for last.”
“Sounds good.” Papa said, turning to head back outside right away. I moved to follow him, but we didn’t make it far as Nanny’s voice called out to us from the kitchen.
“Davey, get in here and get something to eat before you start unloading all that stuff!” Nanny said in a tone that Papa knew better than to argue. He nodded and followed me into the kitchen where Nanny had fixed several trays of sandwiches and had several cups of lemonade sitting on a counter. Even as we entered, a young workman picked up a sandwich, thanked her, and headed back outside.
“How’s it going in here?” Papa asked her, as I hungrily tore into a peanut-butter sandwich of my own. I’d been too busy to realize how hungry I was until I saw the food.
“It’s going really nice.” Nanny said with a broad smile on her face and they chatted lightly for a few more minutes. There was the ring of the doorbell after I’d just finished my second sandwich and pretty much everyone in my family converged on the entryway at the same time, with Jenny all but flying down the stairs. Bob Rule was in the doorway, with his wife and son. Mrs. Rule was holding what looked like an apple pie.
“C’mon in, Bob!” My Dad said with a smile. He’d met the man through Papa while working on that shopping center job.
“David, it’s good to see you again.” Bob Rule said with a smile as he shook Dad’s hand. “Let me introduce my wife Ellen, and my son Sean.”
“Pleased to meet you both.” Dad said to them with a smile. Sean was looking at me with a bashful smile, and I returned his smile with a broad one of my own. “I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Sandy or my daughter Jenny.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” Bob Rule said as Ellen came forward to give the pie to my mother. The rest of the introductions were made quickly, and my Dad disappeared into his new ‘den’ with Bob while the women disappeared into the kitchen. Papa frowned for a moment and then nodded towards the outside.
“Why don’t you start getting your stuff up to your room.” Papa said in a tone that was as much an order as a suggestion.
“Want to help?” I asked Sean who nodded quickly before following me outside.
“So you guys already moved in?” I asked Sean as I opened the van door and started moving stuff aside to get two boxes we could both carry.
“Uh huh.” Sean said almost too quietly to hear. “Last week.”
“Cool, so we’re like neighbors now.” I said, struggling to think of what I could say to draw him out some more while I handed him a smaller box full of my comic books.
“Yeah.” Sean said as I grabbed a bigger box filled with toys. It wasn’t all that heavy, but when my arms started aching while we were going upstairs, I made a silent vow to start exercising again. I hated not being as strong as I was in the last two timelines and needed to get back to that.
For two hours Sean and I dodged workmen while bringing things up to first my room, then my sister’s room, and finally the play room (where Jenny spent the entire time, unpacking each and every one of her dolls and other toys. By the time Papa’s van and Dad’s truck was unloaded, the sun was beginning to set and we were both tired. My sister was tired to, having just finished unpacking all of her toys and getting them put ‘just’ where they belonged, even though she took up some of the space that was supposed to be mine in the play room as well as all of hers.
Sean and his family accepted Dad’s invitation to join us for dinner, as did the owner of Ethan Allen (who was also Mom’s boss). He’d come out personally to supervise his work crews, and like Mr. Rule, had spent about an hour in Dad’s den/office while things were being wrapped up. While Dad was ordering Chinese food for delivery, I was able to peek inside and saw too new checks sitting on Dad’s new desk. There was a wide smile on my face as I escorted Sean outside to see our back patio.
Dad had managed to get two more donations to the campaign, and even if they were just a few hundred dollars each, it was a sign that he wasn’t passing up any opportunity to bring in campaign donations. That was something any good candidate did, always bring in more money, never pass up an opportunity to milk a few bucks out of a potential donor. The fact that both men were part of the business community, natural ground for a Republican, didn’t hurt either. Hopefully one or both men would be part of the Rotary or the Kiwanis, and would invite Dad to a meeting. Ten minutes of speaking in front of one of those groups could bring in ten or twenty thousand for his campaign.
“What’s all that?” Sean asked as he pointed at the closest section off the covered patio area. I smiled remembering the argument with my father about me being too young for this. It was his desire to see me play Little League that had managed to convince him that I should have it all.
“That’s my weight equipment.” I told him proudly and he gave me an odd, scrunched up look that reminded me of my sister.
“Why do you have that?” He asked.
“It’s fun.” I answered with a shrug.
“Really?” He asked me with a look of puzzlement.
“Yeah, let me show you.” I said with a wider smile and headed over to the free weight set.
“I don’t know.” Sean said twenty minutes later as we went inside to wash up before dinner. The Chinese food had arrived and the women were putting it onto trays for dinner, which was being served in the main dining room, albeit on paper plates. “My arms kind of hurt.”
“You get use to it and it feels better the more you do it.” I told him with certainty and he gave me a quizzical look before just shrugging his shoulders.
“We’ll see.” He said as I led him into the bathroom and we shared the sink while we washed our hands. Sean had a big smile on his face, though, and that smile lasted all the way through dinner.
