A Curious State of Affairs

I folded up dad’s letter with the money tucked inside and carefully slid it back into the envelope. I was determined that, when I finally did find my half sisters, they would get everything that my father had intended them to get. Every letter I had read thus far had “Return to Sender” scribbled on the front of the envelope. Even though dad must have been very hurt when every envelope had been returned unwanted, he persisted in writing to his daughters at least every month. Every letter contained money and my father’s never failing conviction that we all would be united as a family one day. There were over two hundred letters in the bundles. I felt a little guilty reading them as they were never meant for my eyes, but it was like reading a chronicle of our lives. Dad mostly wrote about us kids in his letters and very rarely about himself. I felt closer to him as I read them.

Vidcund stormed down the stairs and across the back porch of the Beaker compound. He crossed the small length of property between the back patio and the radio towers. The foundations for the huge towers had always been an excellent hiding place for his vehicle, whichever one he happened to be driving. He climbed into Pascal’s Jeep, started the engine and drove out across the desert without headlights on, just in case anyone might be watching.

Vidcund Curious heaved and retched into the toilet of the Beaker family’s bathroom. He hated the pregnancy sickness. It always seemed to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune moments. He continued to kneel in front of the toilet, his face just above water inside of the bowl, waiting for the nausea to pass. There was always the danger that being perched with his face in the toilet might just send him into new spasms of puking. Sometimes it seemed like an endless cycle. Puke, see and smell the puke in the toilet, puke again. He bit down on his tongue, determined to keep it from rearing up and forcing him to throw up again.

Amber went to the cupboard, poured me a glass of scotch and sat it in front of me. I downed the entire glass in one and pushed the glass back to her across the island counter.

“Another please,” I croaked.

Amber looked apprehensive.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You still have to go to work.”

“I’m sure.”

While Amber poured, I picked up the next item from the yellow envelope. It was a ragged, faded envelope addressed to my father. It was post marked December 1978.

Amber handed me my second glass of liquid sanity and I drank it down. Bolstered by artificial sense of bravado that comes from drinking fine 15 year scotch, I emptied the tattered envelope of its secrets.

 

I was lazing about, a few hours before having to leave for work. Sprawled across my bed, staring at the ceiling, I tried to decide how to get the hero of my novel out of a particularly sticky situation. I had put Andy down for her nap and the house was quiet. It was the perfect time for such a mental excursion. I finally decided that what my hero really needed was a tattoo of a great red dragon across his chest. I was contriving a way in which hero could acquire such a tattoo (and bust some heads in the process) when the phone rang. I lunged for the handset on the bed side table and caught it after the first ring. 

“Hello?”

I looked in on Andy to make sure that her sleep had not been disturbed. She looked up when I entered the room but quickly lost all interest and went back to sleep.

“Hi Pascal, It’s Amber,” said the voice on the other end.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I was wondering, I know you don’t have to be at work for a while yet and I wanted to know if I could come over a bit early.  I have a few things I need to give to you.”

“Really?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what she might have that she would need to give to me.

“Uh, sure, that’s not a problem” I told her. “Do you wanna come over for some lunch? I was just about whip up some bachelor chow.”

“That would be great.” 

I could tell she was excited but, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. 

The only noise around the Beaker dinner table was the sound of silverware on china. It was a seemingly pleasant family scene like any you might see on a 1950’s TV sitcom. The son, Nervous, was absorbed in inhaling his potatoes while his father, Loki, picked through his piece of salmon, inspecting it for any tiny bones that might have evaded detection during the cooking process. The ever diligent wife and mother, Circe, pushed her green beans around on her plate, deep in thought about what she should prepare for the next evening’s meal.

Or not.