Chapter 14

The first thing that struck him when he parked the car near Margaret’s place was how clean the driveway was. Normally there were leaves lying everywhere, the grass was in a pretty bad condition, and the plants were either half-dead, or there were no plants at all. John had to admit it was partly his fault, as he never took very good care of such things. His engagement was elsewhere, so to speak. Now the driveway and the porch area looked really neat. The grass was perfectly mowed, and there were white flowers growing along the steps, and some pink ones were crawling out of two beige pots hanging from the porch roof. The summer wind was delicately swinging them, and there were fresh drops of water on the stairs, meaning the flowers were watered only minutes earlier. She was home.

John didn’t feel good being around the house again. It was weird. He was so relieved he had left the place in March, and yet he was fully aware the things between him and Margaret weren’t finished, weren’t settled, and that thought had been hanging above his head all those months, knocking on his skull from time to time. Maybe it was better that way? Perhaps it was high time to resolve the things between them once and for all. Only now he knew that, provided she was home, and he really hoped she was, he couldn’t imagine coming there again later on; he would have to ask, perhaps even beg for her help. It was a pretty repulsive vision, but he was also aware it was his last chance, his last resort to put his life back in one piece, at least temporarily.

John shook his head, got out of the car and walked to the front door. He spontaneously reached above the door to get the key, but, to his surprise, it wasn’t there. John started looking around the porch to see if there was any other hiding place where Margaret could have left it, but he had no luck. He checked under the doormat, under the stairs, in the flower pots. No key. He sighed and was about to leave when the door opened. John turned around and felt his heart instantly beating faster.

“What are you doing here?” Mickey asked angrily while standing in the doorway. He was far from happy to see him.

“Hi, Mick, is, um, is your mother home?” John asked and smiled clumsily.

“No, she’s at an AA meeting, she won’t be back in at least two hours,” Mickey replied and was about to close the door, when John put his fingers on the frame.

“May I come in?”

“What for?”

“Does it matter? I want to visit you guys.”

“You never call, I haven’t heard anything from you since you drove me home that night weeks ago, you’re not even pretending you care for us and now, out of the blue, you come here. Why?”

“To talk.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Mickey said and continued to close the door.

“No, wait, Mick. Please.”

The boy looked at him, his gaze changed a bit; it was less angry.

“Please,” John whispered, and Mickey let him in.

“Just don’t touch anything.”

John nodded his head and walked in. The house looked nothing like he had remembered it. First of all, it was clean. Smelled fresh. The dishes were washed, the carpets were vacuumed, the curtains were washed. There were only a few magazines on the coffee table, and the whole kitchen was redecorated. The walls were repainted, the rugs on the steps were clean. There was a new sofa and two new armchairs in front of the TV set, and there were new lights hanging from the ceiling.

“Jesus, Mick,” John whispered as he was looking at everything in an awe. “What happened here?”

“We started a new life, John,” Mickey replied looking provocative at his step-dad, who just realized he was called by his first name. It felt strange, but he couldn’t blame the boy. John knew he kind of deserved it.

“A new life, you mean, a life without me.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.”

“I see,” John said quietly, nodded his head and took some steps around the place. “You even have new floors.”

“No, the floors are old, we just renovated them.”

“Okay. I, um, I saw the Murphys’ driveway is empty, now that’s a surprise,” John said and did his best to make it sound as if he was making a light remark. The Murphys were their neighbors who constantly kept their cars outside their house, never used their garage, which always forced the Smiths’ and another neighbors either to park yards away from their own homes, or to knock on the Murphys’ door and ask them to move their cars both in the evening and in the morning. Pain in the ass.

“Yes, they moved out about a month ago. The house has been empty since then. So, John, why are you here? Why do you want to see mom?”

“I wanted to, um, talk to her,” seeing the mixture of anger and aversion in his son’s eyes, John wasn’t feeling too sure about his visit anymore.

“About what?” Mickey asked and sat by the kitchen table. He crossed his arms on his chest, showing that he was now the man of the house.

“Just-talk, really,” he replied clumsily.

“Well, I do think the only thing you can talk about with her is a divorce, John. The sooner, the better.”

“Well, um… how, how is she doing?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Yes, yes I do. You know, you might wanna offer me some coffee, or water at least, that’d be nice,” John said and smiled friendly. “You know, a usual social convention.”

“You won’t be here long enough to drink it,” Mickey replied immediately and John’s smile instantly disappeared from his face. “I think you coming back here with the tail between your legs means the world outside this family hasn’t turned out to be as comfy for you as you had hoped,” he got up, walked a few steps towards John and stopped right in front of him, “and I can tell you right away there’s no place for you here. We’ve been just fine without you. Mom stopped drinking, I moved back to the house and helped to renovate it.”

“You did all this?”

“I don’t see why it’s so surprising. For all the years you lived with us, not once did you even wash the fucking windows, not to mention doing anything to help mom.”

“Mickey, your mom screwed up a few things, too, please remember that before you blame me for everything.”

“Yeah, she did, I know. But when she was busy bringing me up, doing my homework with me, spending weekends behind the wheel driving me from one school to another to play games, cooking, and shopping, it was a bit difficult for her to find some more time to take care of the flowers, or to clean the house, you know?”

“Right, I mean, she also needed some time to get wasted once in a while, it also takes some…”

“Shut up,” Mickey said, and hit his step-father’s chest and pushed him in the direction of the front door, “you’re the last person to talk about her like that, do you hear me?” He pointed at him with his index finger.

It was that very moment when John realized his step-son was actually a grown-up man, and about two or three inches taller than him, who, as it seemed, became the head of the family while he was gone. He had nothing in common with the Mickey he drove home weeks ago. That boy still had some glimpses of hope that maybe his family could be put back together. This one no longer had any doubts, and he didn’t want John around them.

“Jesus, calm down, Mick,” John said and took a step back. “I see you don’t want me here.”

“Brilliant observation, John, yeah, I don’t,” Mick said sarcastically, “we don’t! Do us a favor, and have your lawyer contact us once you have the divorce papers, will you?” He exclaimed and opened the front door. John looked at him, shocked, a bit humiliated, and left the house. Mickey slammed the door and suddenly there was a total silence. The birds were chirping somewhere in the distance, and the bumblebees were buzzing among the flowers growing in the hanging pots.

John slowly walked down the stairs and got into his car. It occurred to him with all its might that Margaret really did stop drinking. Just like she had said in the dream.

He felt like crying as the feeling of complete powerlessness was eating him from the inside. He had no idea what to do, where to go, or where to seek help. Suddenly he heard a text message beep in his pocket. He took out his phone and saw a message from Molly. She was supposed to come back home two weeks later taking some extra job for a friend who got sick. John smiled; he still had two weeks to figure something out.