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Chapter 4 - Home Life

Chapter 4 – Home Life

Visions of Trinity London played through my head all the way home. When I walked into my house, however, reality struck.

“Mom!” I called out as I walked into the house from the garage. “I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?” I walked into the kitchen. Mom was standing behind refrigerator. “Well, what’s for...”

I trailed off as soon as I saw my dad. He wasn’t smiling.

“We got a call today from the soccer coach,” he said coldly. “Usually we are happy to get calls from Coach Hayworth because he’s invariably calling to tell us about some new scholarship or opportunity that Aaron has earned. This time, however, he called to tell us that you had started a fight at practice. On your first day!”

I forced myself not to flinch away from my dad’s glare. I wasn’t a little kid anymore. “Calm down Jerry, your personality is starting to show,” I said to him, doing my best to mimic his cold tone. “If you’re not careful you’re going to have to go back for some more therapy.”

My dad stood up quickly but Mom spoke up first. “Enough,” she said quickly. “Nate, we’re not happy about this. Neither of us. We’re going to come up with some sort of punishment. For now just go up to your room.”

“What about dinner?” I asked.

“I think you better go up now,” my mom said, glancing over at my dad. His face was getting dangerously red. “I’ll bring you something a little later.”

“Room service. Sure, I can live with that,” I said. I looked at Dad to make sure I was getting to him. “I’ll take a glass of ice water with that. Bye Jerry.” There, that should be enough to really ruin his evening. I walked away before he had a chance to react.

As soon as I got into the hallway and was out of view I stopped and sagged down against the wall. I tried to calm myself down and slow my breathing so I could hear my parents’ conversation.

“Jerry, you need to control yourself,” Mom was saying. “He’s just a teenager. They all go through this phase. He doesn’t mean it.”

“Damn right he means it,” Dad fumed. “Phase? He’s been in this phase his whole life. Aaron never acted like this. We need to find some other place that will take him. I can’t stand having him around.”

“This is good for you,” Mom said. Her voice had suddenly taken on a pleading tone that tugged at my heart. “You’ve been working on this. I know you can do it. This is important for us to be a family.”

“We’ve been bringing him home for holidays,” Dad grumbled.

“And you find some excuse for us to be gone every time he comes home,” Mom said. “I need to spend some time with my son, Jerry. Please. He’s a good boy, he just needs some guidance. He needs a good father figure. Maybe you could make more of an effort? Take him to the city to watch a soccer game or something?”

“Don’t push me, Nancy,” Dad said. “You might not like what happens.”

I had heard enough. Mom had always told me to think of this man as my dad and I did my best for her sake but he made it impossible. I was done trying to imagine that we were some sort of happy family. Too much had happened in the past for that and it was obvious that he hadn’t changed. Henceforth he would just be Jerry to me.

I stood up and quietly walked the rest of the way down the hall to my room. I wanted to laugh at the foolishness of sending a 17-year old guy to his room and expecting him to stay there. If I wanted to leave I would. It just so happened that I had a bit of research I wanted to do online.