Jacob ended his call with
the pizza restaurant and went into the living room to see which movie his
youngest children selected. He looked at the title stamped across the large
screen in LED lights: ‘Suicide Squad’.
This was the fourth or fifth time they had watched this movie.
“Again?” Jacob
asked, wondering if he should laugh or be concerned that his young twins were
so interested in the concept of the bad guys being made to do good deeds. But
still, their excitement made him smile. He especially thought it was cute when
Spencer giggled at the screen when one of the characters said something funny.
‘He must be smarter
than I thought if none of these jokes are going over his head,’ Jacob
thought as he looked over at his oldest son who had been scowling since the
movie started. ‘Either he doesn’t wanna
watch this movie again, or he’s having one of those mood swings teenagers deal
with.’
The chiming of the doorbell rang through the house.
“Pizza’s here!” Jacob proclaimed, eliciting happy
cheering from his children and, in Roland’s case, growling from his stomach
despite the look on his face. Although, with the lights on, Roland seemed less
angry. He was probably angry about something and didn’t want them to know.
“You mind helping me out, Roland?” Jacob didn’t need help
to carry four pizzas to the living room. He just wanted to talk. And maybe get him
to bring the drinks, because it had been a long day, and papa needed a cold
one.
Roland didn’t answer, but he got up from his spot on the
couch between his brother and sister and walked over to meet his father in the
kitchen. Jacob paid the delivery guy and gave him a decent tip considering he
had to drive out to the country to deliver the pizzas. Putting them on the
table, Jacob asked, “everything alright, buddy? You’ve been quiet and kinda
angry all night…”
“I’m fine…” Roland muttered, thinking about the dream he’d
had. Given the circumstances, he couldn’t just pretend it wasn’t real. How does
a picture you took in your dream show up on your phone in real life?
Jacob
sighed. He knew better than to believe a child when they said they were “fine”.
“Let
me rephrase that. I know something’s wrong. What is it?” Jacob asked putting
his arm around his son, so Roland couldn’t try to avoid the conversation.
For
the first time since in his entire life, Roland felt uncomfortable around his
father. By now, he’d decided it was obvious that Jacob had been lying to him
about his mother’s death. Roland even tried to justify his father’s lies. Who
wants to tell a young boy his mother died because of something that wasn’t an
accident? What would happen to someone so young, mentally, if they knew had
that kind of information? Could someone as young as Roland was at the time even
understand the situation? Roland figured the reason he’d felt so betrayed was
because he’d like to think he was smart enough to grasp the concept of death without
potentially going crazy. Besides, nobody likes being lied to in any
circumstance.
Roland
took a deep breath, slowly in and out. He looked over his shoulder into the
living room to make sure his younger siblings weren’t listening. The young man
had just realized what the real reason was; no child should have to worry about
something as grim as death.
“How
did Mom really die?” Roland stared
into his father’s eyes who appeared shocked at the question. Roland was just as
shocked, himself. He was planning on coming up with something else to convince
Jacob that something completely different was bugging him. But, his real concern
ejected itself from his mouth.
The
pair stared at each other for a moment before Jacob gave his son a gentle
smile.
“You’re
a smart kid, so I guess I should’ve seen that one coming…” Jacob said softly so
the twins didn’t hear. Surely by now they’d be peering into the kitchen to see
what was taking them so long to bring the pizza into the living room, so they
could eat while continuing their movie.
“You
wanna talk about it? Say, after we eat? The Scarlet and Spencer will probably
eat us if we don’t bring them their food,” Jacob chuckled.
“Sure…”
Roland said, feeling a bit better about the situation, and also sort of scared.
‘What if Dad’s just thinking of another
lie or a way to…kill me, too?’ Roland decided he needed to stop being so
paranoid and just let things happen.
Jacob
face his son and pulled Roland into a big, bear hug, whispering, “I love you,
buddy. And, even if you don’t like what I have to say, everything is gonna be
fine.”
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