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His father took a gulp from a bottle of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Five more years till retirement.”
Silence followed as a woman on the TV happily washed dishes with the magical, grease-cutting power of some new dish soap.
“I’ll, uh, go see if Mom needs help,” Sully said.
“Yup,” his father replied.
Great talk, Dad.The perpetual feeling of inadequacy in the eyes of his father was just another familiar aspect of coming home. Fortunately, his mother was more than happy to make up for his dad’s intractable silences. She buzzed around the kitchen, pulling plates and glasses from the cabinets as pans sizzled on the stove. Sully observed her from the kitchen doorway, always impressed by her seemingly endless energy. His mother had gained weight over the years but carried it well on her medium frame. Her shoulder-length hair was the same rich brown color he’d always remembered, woven with blonde highlights, thanks to faithful monthly pilgrimages to the salon.
“Sullivan, can you put these out, honey?” She handed him a stack of plates. “Did you hear your Aunt Florence found a lump in her breast? Oh my God, as soon as I heard, I ordered myself a pap smear.”
“Mom, please don’t tell me that,” Sully groaned as he took the plates into the dining room.Hmmm, knocking down the wall between the dining room and kitchen would really open up the kitchen. The wall didn’t look to be load-bearing. And replacing all the old carpeting with vinyl flooring could really transform the place.
“They’re performing a biopsy next week,” his mom continued, following him into the dining room to put down the silverware. “She’s just a wreck, as you can imagine. I’ve been on the phone with her every day.”
And on and on it went as the two of them set the table. Fortunately, growing up in his mother’s household had turned Sully into a master of tuning her out. In his head, he imagined all the things he could renovate around the house while murmuring, “Uh huh,” at strategic intervals.
Eventually, the table was set, and Sully brought out the salad and bread as his mother proudly carried her meatloaf from the kitchen. His back muscles nearly seized as he bent over to place the bowl of salad on the table.
“Your Uncle Ned just got one of those genetic tests,” she was saying when Sully tuned back in. “Just don’t tell your Grandpa. He’s convinced all those genome companies are a front so the government can collect our DNA. JOHN! DINNER’S READY!”
Sully pulled out his mother’s chair.
“So, Ned gets this test. He wants to make sure our family doesn’t have the cancer gene, you know, because of Florence. And, I had no idea, but apparently, men can get breast cancer, too. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Sully stared hungrily at the meatloaf.
“JOHN! TURN OFF THE GAME. YOU KNOW IT’S RECORDING!” his mother hollered. “So, you’ll never believe this. Ned finds out that he’s 12% French. Can you imagine? And here we always thought we were almost entirely Czech with a little German and Irish thrown in. But we’re French. Doesn’t that make you feel fancy?” His mother giggled as his dad tromped into the room.
“Hat off at the table, John,” his mother ordered her husband.
Sully never understood how she could stand up to his tall, imposing father so effortlessly.
“Right. I always forget it’s there.” His father pulled off the beaten ball cap, revealing a receding salt-and-pepper hairline. He scratched his beard as he pulled his napkin onto his lap. “Smells good.”
“Yeah, Mom, it looks great,” Sully added.
His mother beamed. “Oh, it was nothing,” she lied.
Sully enjoyed exactly one blissful minute of chowing down on delicious meatloaf before the interrogation began.
“So,” his mother’s gaze swiveled to Sully, “what have you been up to? How’s work?”
And here it was. The moment of truth. Sully hadn’t exactly mentioned his goal of reaching financial independence to his parents. They wouldn’t have understood, not until he had a proof of concept to show them.
“Actually, I quit my job last month,” Sully told them.
“What!” His mother dropped her fork.
“You got a better offer somewhere else?” His dad eyed him suspiciously over his plate.
“No. Um, I’m not working anymore. I’m financially independent.”
“You’re… you’re… unemployed?” his mother gasped in the same way she might have said,You burned down an orphanage?
“What am I going to tell Brenda?” She plopped her elbows on the table, a sacrilege in the Brooks household. “You know what she’s going to say? She’s going to say that I should have had more children. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Nora.’ That’s what she said when John had his vasectomy. But it’s not like she’s one to talk. Sure, she has five kids, but two of them are in jail. Well, technically, Daniel is out on parole, but still—”
“You quit your job without another one lined up?” his father asked, his voice rising above his wife’s rambling. “Why the hell did you do a thing like that? How are you going to pay the bills?”
