A Love Story

There is a sparse air about Dad tonight. His entire body, from head to toes, sags forward when he shakes Shonda’s hand. He appears hollow in every trudge to the bathroom and returns lethargic in a deeper sense. Mom shoots him cursory glances and cracks a few knuckles when his exhausted head bows over the table. Shonda knows about his sluggishness from my morbid stories about his health scares and near-fatal experience on the toilet but this preternatural slog is unfamiliar.  

“Shonda, when did you and Lamar meet?” Mom croaks in a bid to ruin the apple pie’s lattice pattern for a slice with a massive butter knife. 

“Mom, don’t we have a cake knife?” I blurt out and absentmindedly check my phone. I smack my head with the heel of my hand at the alarm for Dad’s pills from two hours ago and hurry to the kitchen for a cake knife and Dad’s medication. He requires two pills every three hours served with water and since my parents are not inclined to purchase any, I set a glass of concentrated orange juice, pills, and the cake knife beside Mom. Shonda’s face creases with worry but I mouth “he’ll be fine” and she slides in the chair, relieved. 

Mom plops the pills in Dad’s glass and surgically transfers a slice of apple pie from the tin to her plate. When I sit back down, Shonda clears her throat, and Mom seal-claps Dad awake which scares her. His woozy body can’t brace for anything and after Mom commands him to drink the orange juice, he collapses and convulses. I leap out of my chair and shake him, shine a light in his eyes, panic-slap him but his unstable body won’t relax. Shonda weeps as if my assurance is dishonest now and I weep with her out of regret over my hasty conclusion while Mom feels for his pulse and comes up with nothing. 

“I’m gonna head to the bathroom, babe,” Shonda kisses my forehead and rubs my back with uncertainty and pity before she pauses mid-stroll to ask for directions. 

“You wanna head upstairs and it’s straight ahead.” 

Once Shonda rushes upstairs in a heavy sob, Mom and I trade stark glances. This is the tenth version of “Dad” to expire since the original was engulfed in a thrift store fire ten years ago. Something about the phrase “no smoking” didn’t dissuade him from lighting a cigarette around a handful of flammable objects at the end of his shift. Since then, Mom and I have created a cast of him from memory and, through the power of a 3D printer, paint, and other materials, the process takes five minutes for a fresh adaptation. 

“Help me lift him to the basement before Shonda pokes her head where it shouldn’t be.” 

I carry his upper body and Mom tucks his legs under her arms as we waddle downstairs to dump the body into a pile of others beneath an unused bedsheet. We wander into the next room over to pour paint into the cast, print organs, sit impatiently for a few minutes, strap his body to the bed, and surge electricity throughout the new model. Shonda is devastated by what transpired but the unfiltered truth would be herculean for her to stomach. Sometimes, you miss a loved one to the point where something considered unethical, ungodly, or untenable can revive them. She can’t express sympathy, empathy, or begin to embrace either toward us without the context of grief and as her closest experience is losing a childhood doll to a sanitation truck, there won’t be understanding. 

We dress the new “Dad” and I meet Shonda near the top of the stairs upon hearing her footsteps creak. 

“Is everything okay down here?” 

My eyes don’t avert from hers for a second and any hint of concern is untraceable behind my wide smile. Shonda pulls me into a squeeze and I manufacture some tears for the moment. Mom and “Dad” lean in behind us and join the hug before we saunter upstairs with the basement door bolted shut. 

“Are you okay, Mr. Roswell?” Shonda shoots him a puzzled gaze and he chuckles with a mouthful of potato salad. 

He swallows it and assures Mom and me that she’s oblivious with a wide smile similar to mine. 

“I’m fantastic, Shonda! Thanks for asking and by the way, how did you and Lamar meet?” 

Her face beams and it appears she manages solid distance from any slight curiosity about “Dad”. 

“Oh, my bad. Lamar was- excuse me, apple pie makes me kind of gassy- Lamar was spinning that one lottery object, you know the one that holds the balls for bingo.”

“You mean the tombola,” I interject and we kiss each other’s interlocked hand. 

“You learn something new every day,” she chuckles and the rest of us mimic her, believable enough to carry on without playing detective, “Anyway, he turns the handle for a school lottery, for a college literature club, and our eyes crossed. I mean, we locked eyes in an instant.” 

Mom serves her another slice of apple pie which she refuses but digs into ten seconds later. 

“It was a lottery from the literature club to give away a free copy of The Propagandist Diarist,” I chime in before a thoughtless scoop of macaroni and cheese. 

Mom smacks my wrist with the spatula for the upside-down pineapple cake and we mimic Shonda’s chuckle as she passes gas and burps simultaneously. 

“I’m sorry about that. I have to use the bathroom again.” 

Dad’s guffaw coincides with Shonda’s sprint to the bathroom and Mom whacks his hand with the same upside-down pineapple cake spatula. 

“Isn’t the Propagandist Diarist a fiction to sell the ideologies of a socialist traitor? What would Shonda want with that?” Dad snickers mid-slice of the HoneyBaked ham. 

“Communist traitor, honey. You wrote that novel, remember?” Mom interjects and yanks the pan of macaroni and cheese away from my reach, “You forced your ideals on teenagers who are only given the value of a capitalistic society.” 

“Shonda loves to read and after one of the professors won the book, we strolled to class riffing on the book’s perspective on underlying issues of the human condition and the world at large,” I grunt and stab the massive butter knife into the HoneyBaked ham. 

“The human condition is more complex than one can cram into a fiction novel about a plush tiger and his little girl companion prattling on by a river for her 250-page diary,” Dad wriggles the butter knife free and shoves it toward me. 

“That doesn’t matter when it comes to authorial intent, does it, sweetheart?” Mom motions for me to return the butter knife to her as Shonda descends the stairs. 

“Sounds like a heated discussion down here,” Shonda grins and wraps her arm around me at the table. 

“You and Lamar bonded over this Propagandist Diarist book, right? What piques your interest in it?” Dad bellows as his right eye sloops. I pray Shonda doesn’t notice or consider his flaw glaring until Mom draws attention from it with another pie. Now, there’s no reason for alarm. 

“The little girl was, what’s the word, cynical about the world and the plush tiger offered his pitch-black eyes for a different perspective,” She reaches for the slice of cherry pie Mom hands her, “That’s one likable element.” 

“What was your first date? Lamar said the arcade at the time but you’re a bit too intelligent for the arcade,” Dad sighs and rattles a finger around his eye socket to stabilize his renegade eyeball behind Mom’s hands. 

“Arcade games require intense hand-eye coordination,” she chuckles before another slice of cherry pie and I kick a syringe to Mom under the table, “Are you sure you’re okay, Mr. Roswell?” 

Mom removes her hand partition and Dad nods his head without a sound aside from the crack of his neck. Shonda surveys the food on the table and narrows her eyes toward the door. Dad’s penchant to poke around someone’s intelligence already wears on her and no amount of apple or cherry pie can persuade her the inquiries are well-intended. Mom motions to Shonda’s cheek with her eyes and when Shonda spots the cue, I plant a kiss on her cheek. She giggles against my neck, and exhales; all is well again. 

“What do you do for a living, Shonda dear?” Mom smiles and pulls down Dad’s strange vaulted left shoulder. This is not the time for “Dad” to malfunction and on the night a fresh body is molded too. Shonda doesn’t soften her gaze at Dad’s shoulder regardless of my pleas with puppy-dog eyes to face me. 

“I’m a chiropractor,” she exclaims and rushes to crack Dad’s shoulder back into alignment. 

“How do you spend your free time?,” Mom trains a steely gaze on Shonda and sticks her chest out. 

“I’m a storm chaser. That’s self-explanatory,” Shonda rejects my hug with her right arm and doesn’t break Mom’s gaze. 

“You don’t spend free time with Lamar?” Mom barks and clicks Dad’s sagging jaw into place without missing a beat. 

“He chases storms with me and enjoys it, don’t you babe?” Shonda glares and I inadvertently nod my head to the crash of thunder outside, “I have a few questions of my own if you don’t mind.” 

My body sags forward similar to Dad’s earlier and I scramble to throw myself together while Mom gives me an incredulous stare and Shonda screams. My entire body channels Dad’s lethargy and brokenness while Mom jabs Dad with the remainder of the syringe’s liquid. I move to speak and my body folds into itself on a whim. I didn’t expect this vessel to expire now but Shonda can’t ignore any of it and fights to wrangle me into some semblance of a human. There is no reception, Shonda which means the police can’t assist either of us and you may not escape but a concerted effort is worth a try. 

“Shonda, run,” I murmur before my body collapses and convulses.

***

I book it through the living room as Lamar’s dad lunges at me and his mom swings at me with the massive butter knife. I circle a coffee table and dodge glass animals, a candelabra, a succession of Christmas decorations, and the butter knife on a mad dash for the basement. I fiddle with the lock and sprint downstairs but bump into a pile covered by a bedsheet. When the bedsheet floats off, the bodies of Lamar and his dad are stacked in the corner and I shriek. There is no way in hell I would have shown up with Lamar if I knew this was the case. His mom is a maniac and I am not about to become the next link to her chain of experiments. 

I feel the corners of every other wall for a hidden exit and discover a loose brick wall to shove open. I hear “Shonda, you’ve been with Lamar for six months and you’re leaving already? I won’t allow you to leave my son brokenhearted” and I shove the wall closed and stumble toward the exit. I push forward in the waist-high snow until I reach the car and whip out my phone. There’s no reception, of course. 

I scrounge around my pockets for the car keys and find them at the same time Lamar’s mom and dad stomp outside. 

“You won’t make it far without air in every tire,” Lamar’s mom calls out while I drive away. 

A few minutes into the bumpy drive, the car indicates that there’s no air in one of the tires. When I step out and notice the front left tire is punctured, I have a hunch his mom is responsible. I burst out of the car and sprint down the snow-covered road; the one place that doesn’t hold waist-high snow and hear a bullet whizz past me. I yell and cover the bleeding tip of my ear; any closer and part of my hearing would be gone. 

“You have questions, Shonda? Ask away,” Lamar’s mom calls out and comes into view through the darkness before this light post with a handgun. 

“I have all the answers I need, Mrs. Roswell,” I proceed to pant in a jog away from her and Lamar’s dad. 

“Call me Jocelyn,” she vocalizes and shoots the back of my leg but I push forward regardless. 

“And call him James.” 

Lamar’s dad rushes for me and I scream for help and hobble away but the trail of blood isn’t difficult to follow and the scream is, especially in the middle of nowhere. I wish we left when Lamar was coherent, I wish none of the tires were slashed, I wish my life wasn’t in mortal danger but this worst-case scenario is alive. I duck into a patch of waist-high snow but the blood gives up my position and I stomp away until a bullet pierces through the back of my skull. 

***

“Shonda, when did you and Lamar meet?” Mom croaks in a bid to ruin the apple pie’s lattice pattern for a slice with a cake knife. 

Shonda beams in a fit of giggles when we trade glances. 

“Lamar was spinning that one lottery object, you know the one that holds the balls for bingo.”

“You mean the tombola,” Mom and I answer simultaneously and we chuckle while Dad shovels potato salad into his mouth.