“There is no
god!” Tyler exclaimed, standing at the kitchen table where previously he sat,
staring at his mother whose mouth was agape with shock and disdain. Olivia, his
fiancée sat next to him, her head buried in her hands. Even the dogs sitting in
the corner of the dining room were painfully aware of the awkward situation, as
they jumped to their feet at his quite loud declaration. Tyler looked from his
aunt, to his mom to his fiancée before exiting the room embarrassed and angry.
He made his way quickly out the side door in the dining room to the carport and
out to the oak tree that stood in the side yard. Leaning against the tree,
Tyler pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lit it with a Zippo he
pulled from the other. Olivia and his mother would not appreciate his current action,
but after the scene in the dining room he needed this little release.
***
“I really hope you like my family,” Tyler said to Olivia as she sat next time
him in the car, looking at her phone as he drove. “I mean, we already know that
I love your family, and your family loves me, but my parents aren’t as open as
yours. I’m sure you’ll see that tonight. They can be very argumentative and
opinionated. Everything is personal. Don’t be surprised if Dad is quiet and
doesn’t participate in most of the conversation, but Mom will talk and talk and
talk. If Aunt Minnie is there it will be hard to get a word in edgewise.”
Tyler had wanted Olivia and his parents to meet for quite a while.
Unfortunately, while they were going to school in Madison, WI they didn’t have
the opportunity to travel, and while his parents had the means to travel they
opted not to make the trip. Now, Tyler and Olivia lived in Nashville. Tyler had
a job writing for The
Nashville Tribune while
Olivia worked at The Parthenon in Centennial Park. The closer proximity made a
trip to Gainesville, FL a more sensible possibility for them.
“I see where you get it from,” Olivia said with a sarcastic smile on her face,
not looking up from her phone.
“Get what from?” Tyler replied.
Olivia looked at him with that shit eating grin, “The ability to talk like
you’ll never talk again.”
“I think from now on I’m going to call you Mayor Sass of Sassington!” They both
laughed as Olivia kissed Tyler’s cheek. “I’m just nervous. I haven’t seen my
parents in…what?...six years! Christ, it seems like forever! They haven’t met
you yet, and we’ve been engaged for two of those years. I just want to make
sure y’all like each other.”
“I’m sure it’s going to be fine,” Olivia said reaching over to stroke Tyler’s
neck as she put her phone back in her open purse that sat in the floor board of
the car.
“I hope so, things get so touchy sometimes,” Tyler leaned his head back into
Olivia’s hand as she stroked his neck and the back of his head. “I mean, we
didn’t talk for a year after you and I first started dating.”
Olivia nodded, but Tyler’s mind drifted back to the circumstances behind that
lack of communication. It was a sore subject even now a few years after they
began talking again. His parents loved his last girlfriend, Alicia. They had
never met her, but she was the daughter of a preacher which automatically made
her a saint in their eyes. They didn’t even care that she was a different
denomination than they were; all they cared about was that she might put Tyler
back on the straight and narrow. When Tyler broke up with her, they kept in
contact with Alicia and practically cut off communications with their own son.
Alicia made herself look like a saint while talking about Tyler’s drinking
habits. Since Alicia had the first word, he knew he had no chance to speak
about her dark side to his parents. If he told them that Alicia was the girl
that introduced him to cocaine and ecstasy, they would think that he was simply
trying to make her look bad even though he was just telling the truth. As far
as they were concerned, her position as a PK meant more than the demons banging
around in her closet.
He had given up on being upset about Alicia’s actions; after all, it’s only
natural that a scorned loved one would try to lash out in the most hurtful way
possible. Tyler was still bothered by his parents’ ability to throw him away so
easily. They made up shortly after he had started dating Olivia, and while they
were civil enough to speak to her on occasion, they weren’t happy about the
fact that he was dating a Catholic. A devout Catholic wasn’t the same thing in
their mind as a devout Protestant. He loved Olivia and his parents though, so
he tried to keep the peace with both.
“I’m still really excited though,” Tyler said to Olivia when the reverie was
interrupted by a car cutting him off. “Fucking FIB! Learn how to fucking
drive!” he shouted.
Olivia held on to the dashboard as he quickly jumped lanes and sped past the
Illinois driver while flipping him the bird. She shot Tyler an exasperated look.
“What?! Come on, what I did wasn’t that bad!” he replied.
Olivia slowly leaned back in her seat acting scared by Tyler’s driving.
“Oh don’t be so dramatic!” Tyler said to her.
“I’m not; I’m just appreciating my life.”
He scowled at her as much as he could while driving. “I don’t know if I’ve ever
told you this, but mom looks like Harriet Winslow from Family Matters. It’s really
weird because looking through her old yearbooks she actually looked like Kelly
back in the day. Dad looks like Professor Lasky from Saved by the Bell: The College
Years.”
“I think you can introduce me to your dad first, yum!”
“Disgusting, and I’ll keep you as far away from him as I can,” Tyler said
before he had to practically slam the brakes on for the slow moving car in
front of him. “Get out of the way, asshole, the speed limit’s 65 not 40! Fuck!!”
“Hopefully I get to meet your dad today…rather than die in a fiery car
accident…”
Tyler shot her a frustrated glance as she pulled out a copy of Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues from the floor board of the car next
to her purse.
***
They arrived in Gainesville just in time for dinner. As they pulled up, Tyler’s
dad was setting up sprinklers on the lawn and eyed the car suspiciously.
“I flew here last time so he doesn’t recognize my car,” Tyler giggled.
“And he doesn’t know we’re coming?” asked Olivia.
“I thought I told you about that!” he replied. “No, his birthday is tomorrow,
so Mom thought it would be a great surprise for him.
“Awww!” Olivia said in that extremely girlish way that made Tyler glad his
complexion kept the red in his cheeks from being seen.
His dad slowly walked over to the car, trying to look
through the windows as he made his way to the driver side of the car. Finally,
just before his dad made it to the driver side window, Tyler opened the door
and stepped out of the car. His dad took a step back and reached for his chest
as if he wasn’t quite ready for this shock.
“T…Ty?” Tyler’s dad asked as he stumbled backwards.
“Hey dad,” Tyler responded. His dad laughed loudly gripping
his chest as Tyler and Olivia exchanged pleased glances. Tyler motioned for
Olivia to get out of the car and she complied. “This is Olivia, my fiancée.”
Tyler’s dad laughed heartily as he walked to her, “I’m
Bruce, Ty’s dad.” He chuckled more to himself, “Well, I s’pose you already knew
that!” He reached out to shake her hand, but then shook his head and gave her a
hug instead.
Tyler felt the sting of possible tears in his eyes and
blinked a couple of times to hold them back. “Happy birthday, dad!”
Bruce laughed hysterically and wiped tears from his eyes,
“How…how did you...?”
“I don’t know if Mom told you,” Tyler said, “but we moved
to Nashville a couple weeks ago, and back when we found out that we were making
the move we decided to come down for a visit. Besides you had to meet my future
bride!” Tyler motioned for Olivia to come to him. She came up and took his
hand. “And it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen y’all.”
“Six years by my count,” Bruce responds. “It’s good to see
ya, son!” He walks over to Tyler and gives him a hug. “Your mom should be home
in ‘bout an hour and a half. We’ve done some stuff to the house, let me give ya
a look ‘round.” With that, Bruce led Tyler and Olivia through the carport and
into the dining room through the side door.
Bruce showed Tyler and Olivia around the house, most of
which hadn’t changed since Tyler lived there with the exception of his room
which had been switched to something of a library. The biggest surprise for
Tyler was the back yard. The place he used to target practice with his BB gun
had been changed to a pond over the last several years. Tyler would have felt
bad about the loss of his history, but the pond was used as a home for red ear
sliders he had caught as a kid that had become too big for the aquariums in the
house.
It wasn’t too long afterwards that Tyler’s mom got home, and
both Tyler and Olivia were surprised to see Tyler’s Aunt Minnie with his mom.
He always had fond memories of Aunt Minnie, and explained to Olivia that she
got her nickname Minnie because she was a huge fan of Minnie from Mickey Mouse
that her brothers and sisters started calling her Minnie and it just stuck. She
had an interesting since of humor as well, that Tyler fondly remembered. When
she saw the abbreviation for things like Boulevard, she pronounced it as it
appeared. Tyler had been a big fan of classical music growing up, and when he
spoke of Beethoven, Aunt Minnie would pronounce the name Beet-ho-ven rather
than the typical pronunciation of Bay-toe-ven.
It had been so long that Tyler had seen her, though, that
he considered Minnie as an ironic name. Upon seeing her again he thought he
ought to rethink the irony of her name. Last she had seen her she was quite
large, but now as she entered his former home she was quite thin. He found her
appearance somewhat awkward because she looked like a small woman on a large
frame. Of course, he felt himself a large man on a small frame, and Aunt Minnie
made sure to acknowledge that in their first meeting in years as he had made
sure to bring up her new and improved appearance.
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