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44 - Sunday Night

This is completely first-draft and un-proofread and badly written so I'm apologizing beforehand. And it's kinda short lol I'm sorry

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44 - Sunday Night

Luke Waters

  For a day, I was too scared to open the envelope that Jim gave back to me in twenty-four hours. It stayed on my bedside table. A lot of other things happened. It turned out that Mom wasn’t kidding about the divorce. She broke it to Cas. I wasn’t sure how she took it. We spent more time together, in my room or out in the garden, with me deposited on the bench and Cas packing snow into large piles that resembled snowmen. I barely even saw Dad, and didn’t want to either, now that I had everything I needed. Mom hired a divorce lawyer. Dad moved out in the weekend – or at least I assume he did because one morning he wasn’t there and Mom was smiling more at breakfast time.

 On Sunday, Naomi and Joseph drove up from Boston to Kevin and Grace’s – Harvard closed for winter break so they decided to spend the holiday in Springfield. Leo picked me and Cassidy up and we had Sunday night dinner at their place.

 Grace opened the door for us.

 “Oh, look at you,” she tutted, grabbing my wheelchair handles and pulling me into the warmth of the wooden-panelled hallway. “How’s the physio and everything going, honey?”

 “Fine, sort of,” I said. Behind me, Leo closed the door and said, “Hey, Mom.”

 Grace ignored him and went straight for Cassidy, hugging her and helping her take off her bulky green coat. I saw Leo roll his eyes.

 “Mom, I said I’m sorry.”

 Grace took hold of my wheelchair again. “I made pot roast, Luke.”

 “Wow.”

 “Mom.”

 “What did you do?” I asked Leo. Grace just cleared her throat loudly and didn’t let him reply. Then I was being wheeled into a crowded living room packed with people so he couldn’t answer anyway. It was warm and smelled like Jack Daniels. There were kids all over the floor and one on the couch. Ruth was asleep in a cot by the couch and Angie was curled up around the defeated-looking Christmas tree reading Moby Dick.

 “Clearing up is chaos during winter break,” Grace muttered, before announcing my presence. I was deposited somewhere in the middle of everyone and bombarded with questions about my health, which were all tedious to answer but didn’t last too long.

 “What about your dad?” Kevin asked a little later. “You know, everything with the pictures –”

 I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah – I got the pictures, but my parents are – well, they’re getting a divorce.”

 A round of gasps made their way around the room but the adults didn’t look too down about it. Joseph said, “Don’t feel terrible about it, kiddo. We all know it’s for the best.”

 Cas had disappeared somewhere with the twins, so it was safe to talk about it. “I don’t know how Cassidy’s taking it,” I said. “Like – she seems alright but – I don’t know.”

 “Your mom will take care of it, honey,” Naomi said. “Just continue to be normal with her, that’s all she needs.”

 I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

 “But have you seen the pictures?” Angie asked from where she was lying on her stomach on the floor.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”