May flash tale #2 - "Bite" (Patreon)

Los Olivos, California

Like always, John has done all the work. He has cooked the pulled pork, made fresh guacamole, sliced the salad veggies. He even set the table – or tables, one for the grown-ups and one for the kids – and he has put bowls of sour cream and shredded Mexican cheese on both.

He has done all of this, even though he will not be thanked.

“You feeding an army?” His older sister Becky laughs as soon as she sees the grocery bags on the counter. She sends her kids upstairs and kisses their father hello. “Hope you’re hungry, Daddy.” He grunts non-committedly and doesn’t shift from his scuffed La-Z-Boy, just like always, watching the game and waiting to be called for supper.

From the kitchen, John keeps an eye on the score. Dodgers beating the Diamondbacks. At least there’s that.

Their mother calls to him. “Sure I can’t help? Feel like I should be doing something.” She gets half-way out of her chair, and John waves her back down. Because does she want another fall? Does she want one more reason to go in for tests?

“Mom, relax, I’ve got this.” And he does, even if he guesses that he did buy too much cheese, and maybe the avocadoes could have been riper (should’ve stopped at El Rancho instead of settling for Albertson’s). He’s the youngest child but he’s twenty-two now, fresh out of college and already flying high in his career. He’s determined to succeed, and he’s got the generalized anxiety to prove it.

One of Becky’s kids comes down from the bonus room long enough to whine at Becky, “Caleb’s being a baby.”

Becky laughs, ruffles the boy’s hair. “He’s only three, honey, he can’t do the things you and your sister do.” She turns to John. “Dinner almost ready?”

“Just about,” John replies. He starts warming tortillas in the skillet.

Becky sends her oldest back upstairs to get the others, and then she says brightly, “I’ll make ice water for everyone.” As if John had forgotten – and maybe he had, but come on, if Becky looks back on this meal as ‘the one she and John made together’, he might just lose his mind. Just like when she claimed credit for ‘helping’ for scooping the avocado from its skin, when John was the one who minced the onions, added the chipotle peppers and bacon.

He puts the tortillas in the ceramic warmer and puts the pulled pork on the table. Everything is the same as the last time he did this – from the checkered tablecloth to the heavy water glasses that someone will end up spilling - except Becky’s three kids are older now – 3, 5, and 7. Yes, everyone gets older, along with his increasingly shaky and creaky parents, but in terms of responsibility? Ownership? No one changes, and John shouldn’t expect anything different. But he brought everyone together at his parents’ place, he sacrificed his Memorial Day weekend off work, because that’s the point – if John doesn’t bring the family together like this, no one else will.

If he doesn’t bring the family together, they won’t talk about Mom and Dad getting older, needing help, they won’t take decisions and make arrangements.

They’re not getting any younger, he’s tired of telling Becky. We should work things out now, before one of them gets really sick and we don’t have any options.

But Becky finds the subject morbid, despite their parents both entering their sixties with failing health.

The front door opens and closes, and Becky’s husband Darrin announces his own arrival. “Something smells good.”

“Just in time,” says Becky, with a tone that suggests that Darrin has in fact turned up later than promised.

The kids thump and bounce down the stairs at the sound of their father. He grabs them, prompting giggles and shrieks, and then carries the youngest to the kid’s table. At least he can supervise them while John feeds his parents and has an adult conversation about healthcare, social security and Kaiser, and why it won’t all be down to their youngest son to take care of them.

And then the weirdest thing happens.

Darrin sits at the grown-up’s table.

John watches him do it, and he looks at Becky. Because she’s sitting down there as well. And then Mom and Dad are sitting at opposite ends, Mom is asking Dad if he’ll say Grace, and John is left without a seat.

He stares at Becky. She nods towards the kid’s table. “Could you?” she asks.

John blinks at her. “You want me to watch your kids?”

Becky smiles, getting up and reaching into her pocket. “Sorta kinda,” she says softly, and then she holds up a red plastic object that reminds John of a Nintendo Switch controller.

No sound comes from the object, but there is a bright red light, prompting John to think of a laser beam as it strikes him, making him fall back in surprise.

But in a moment, in no time at all, he doesn’t have far to fall.

“Oopsie!” Becky says sweetly, as if she’s talking to Caleb. She smiles down at John, somehow managing to gather him into her arms. “Does Johnny have an owie?”

John opens his mouth to correct her, to put her straight. Instead, he bursts into tears. Because he does have an owie, or at least the emotional pain of surprise. How has he shrunk down into almost nothing, how is Becky holding him easily and kissing his cheeks?

“Mommy makes it better,” says John’s mother, looking at them both. Which is extraordinary, until it isn’t. Because that’s not his mother, it’s Nana, and there’s Papa, both of them looking better than they had a few moments before. Younger, losing decades, just like John.

“He okay?” Nana asks.

“He’s okay,” replies Becky, drawing out the words, giving her reply a sing-song quality that distracts John for thinking about confusing ideas like before, like younger, like what…the…hell.

And then John is sitting in his highchair, Becky fastening a bib around his neck and then putting a soft corn tortilla and a cup of guac onto his tray.

John stares at his sister. His mother? His eyes are like saucers.

Becky nods encouragingly. “Take a bite,” she says, tearing a strip off the tortilla. “Take a bite, baby.” And then quietly, just for his ears, “I got this. You don’t have to worry, I’ll take care of you.”

And now it’s suppertime. John gnaws on the tortilla, scoops the wonderful green mush into his mouth. Well, partly into his mouth, mostly over his cheeks and chin. He’s pretty sure that he helped make the stuff, until the idea of a recipe and ingredients fades from his mind.

Caleb points and laughs. “Messy baby!” he crows, which is fair, which doesn’t upset Johnny in the slightest. He giggles in response, smiling at his brothers and sister as guacamole drips down his chin and lands safely on his big, secure in the knowledge that everything is the same as always.

THE END

“A young man doesn't like being sat at the kid’s table, but he may finish the meal by looking up to the others” - DukoDukoNe