Chương 86: CDM 2, Chapter 22: Throwback

Our church community was like the small towns I drove through on my way to wild hunts. The center of town was a main street lined with storefronts and orbited by homes that were a few rural degrees beyond suburban, and then larger farms formed the outer rim. It wasn't a perfect set of concentric circles or anything, but that was roughly how it was laid out. Another larger town was a ten-minute drive away. Our church was on Main Street as well, of course.

I had wanted to take Beth and me home the back way, taking the less-traveled side roads where we were least likely to pass someone who recognized us, but the roads were bad. Thanks to the snow, we got to drive right through the middle and see how nothing had really changed. When Beth spotted the church, her eyes stayed locked on it as we passed.

"We're going to regret this," Beth said softly.

"I know."

"It already feels claustrophobic."

"Pull the ripcord whenever you need to. There's no minimum length of time. That's if I don't pull it first."

"I know," Beth replied.

"I keep telling myself this is for me and not for them. If I see them now, I don't have to feel guilty about not seeing them for the rest of my life."

"What are the chances that actually works out how you want it to?"

"We're already in the trap. Don't make me admit it." We pulled down a winding driveway before stopping in front of a humble white farmhouse with an old barn looming behind. Though my dad had plowed ahead of our arrival, I felt my piece-of-crap car sliding and slipping as we approached. If I ended up stuck in a snowbank or something, I might abandon the car outright and walk instead of spending that much more time with my parents. I had walked this driveway in the snow a lot, actually.

Sometimes, the weather got so bad that plowing a path to the house wasn't feasible, so we'd park on the edge of the road and hike the rest. What a strange memory to have surface all of a sudden, I thought. Neither Beth nor I moved to leave the car when I shifted into park. We stared at the front door. A fresh wreath with a bright red ribbon hung behind the storm door, and Christmas lights wrapped the porch railing.

I was about to offer Beth one more word of encouragement when the door swung open, and three dogs barreled out. Two border collies leapt off the front steps before circling the car excitedly. The third dog, a labrador super mutt with streaks of silver in her hair, took each step one at a time.

"I didn't think about the pets," Beth whimpered.

"Let's get this over with." The dogs swarmed me first, but as soon as they caught Beth's scent, the two collies zipped to the other side of the car.

"Hey, girl." I squatted, holding both hands out for Thunder, the older lab.

"I missed you." She pushed her head between my arms and leaned in to lick my face. I remembered picking her up from a farm as a puppy. Beth and I got to name her, and we went with Thunder because it was storming at the time. I know, but come on, I was twelve. Out of sight, Beth giggled, catching Thunder's attention. She pulled away from me, her tail wagging the whole way to Beth. Before I could stand, two border collies tackled me.

"Oh," Beth said, "You were gone by then. That's right. The bigger one is Roxxy. The smaller one is Dolly."

"Ey!" my father shouted out the door, following it with a quick, shrill whistle.

"Back inside." The dogs mostly listened. Beth and I followed. The creaking wooden floors and the fragrance of fresh pine and pet dander hit me harder than the old floral wallpaper or the family photos hung on the walls. This place somehow felt like I had never left while also feeling as if I hadn't seen it in decades. Six years–I guess closer to seven at that point–wasn't that long, was it? My dad wore a flannel shirt and blue jeans.

Instead of greeting us, he guided the dogs out of the entryway with the promise of treats.

"It's so good to see you both home again," my mom said, pulling both Beth and me in for a hug.

"You've gotten so big. Remember when you were barely tall enough to hug my leg at the grocery store? Oh, where does the time go?"

"Hi mom," Beth managed.

"I'm about to put dinner out." Pulling Beth by the wrist, my mom stepped toward the dining room. I followed.

"Sit, sit." The room wasn't large to begin with, but the two china cabinets on both sides of the table didn't help. Christmas bulbs and sprigs of pine joined the plates behind the cabinet glass. On the hutch behind the head of the table, the decorations continued. Those were a nativity set, the same one we had put out every year for as long as I could remember. My father caught me searching the surroundings.

"If you're looking for Francis, you won't find him," he said. Francis was an orange tabby, a former barn cat who happily accepted a life of indoor luxury.

"Put him down last month," my dad added as he sat in his chair at the head of the table.

"Got too old to feed himself." When I first left home, I knew this was inevitable. Pets didn't live forever. Truthfully, I might have hugged Thunder and Francis longer than I hugged Beth before I left. There was a chance Beth could come find me someday, but I knew that moment with my dog and my cat was likely the last. Seeing Thunder again was nice in a way, but that little bit of joy came with guilt. How cruel I was to leave that sweet girl behind. And Francis. How many times had he looked for me when I was gone?

Get it together, Dorion. Fuck, dude.

"I baked a victory meatloaf," my mom said, carrying a casserole dish with oven mitts on.

"We are so blessed to have our children back under our roof." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She returned with beans and mashed potatoes, setting those on the table as well. She ruffled Beth's hair a little bit as she squeezed by to take her seat at the end of the table opposite my father. My mom extended her arms, and my father did the same so we could all hold hands. Oh, right. This was a thing we did.

"Lord, thank you for this food we are about to receive," my father prayed.

"Bless the hands that provided it, and may it nourish our bodies as you nourish our souls. Amen." My dad put a piece of meatloaf on his plate and passed the dish to me.

"Government work treating you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah. Finished the internship, so I'm full-time now."

"Does that mean you're going into dungeons too?" My mom asked. I nodded.

"Whenever they need extra hands. It's mostly desk work." She turned to Beth.

"And you're learning bow-making? How did that come about?"

"My boyfriend saw that I was interested in it, and he bought me a lesson to try it."

"A beau? You could have brought him along tonight, you know."

"He died," Beth said, looking down at her plate. My mom reached for Beth's hand and squeezed it.

"Oh, darling. I'm so sorry. What happened?"

"He was murdered." My father sighed and shook his head.

"There's so much evil in this world. We worry about you being out in that alone."

"I'm not alone," Beth replied.

"I have Dorion, and I have our friends. I was more alone when I was here."

"Bethany!" my mom scolded.

"Is the move to New Eden a sure thing?" I asked, hoping to save Beth from a dogpile.

"Plane ride is scheduled for the first of February," my dad answered.

"They're doing special flights for settlers, so we'll be surrounded by our people the whole way."

"What about the pets?" Beth asked.

"Roxxy and Dolly have their tickets too. Thunder isn't doing well. The girl's in a lot of pain." Beth and I both knew that meant she was getting put down soon too.

"It's such a beautiful place," my mom continued.

"Everyone says the pictures don't do it justice, and if that's the case, it must be breathtaking there. Since your father is a deacon, they're making him the mayor of our new neighborhood. He'll keep things in order and running smoothly for everyone."

"That's nice," Beth said.

"Becky and Genie are moving down with their parents. That boy Aaron is too. I know that was just a crush, but he's grown into quite the man. He's level 5 already, you know." For several long seconds, the only sounds to be heard were the tink of silverware and the shuffling of dogs weaving between our legs to beg for scraps. I snuck Thunder some meatloaf. My mom took a deep breath.

"I tried to be a good mother. I tried so hard. Before we go, I need to know what I did wrong. Tell me." She glanced between Beth and me. I shook my head.

"We don't need to go down that road."

"Well, we are," my mom insisted.

"I have a right to know. After everything we sacrificed to give you good lives, an explanation isn't much to ask."

"Mom."

"Do you not know why you've been so angry with us all these years? Is that why you won't answer?" I set my silverware on the table.

"Fine. You and dad would have been happier divorced. That would have spared us all your fighting and your tantrums. Yes, I'm angry. That's what our family is, and I have no idea what to do with it all. I know I don't want to handle it the way you have, but I don't know what the fuck I should do instead."

"Dorion David!"

"I cuss, mom. Jason Lewis and I started swearing back in fourth grade because we couldn't figure out how a word could be a sin. Remember what happened when I asked about that?"

"And we explained it all to you." Laughing, I couldn't help but lean back.

"Explained it? Dad spanked me so hard I couldn't sit down." Turning to my father, I added, "I still have nightmares of you coming home angry from work. There's this memory I have where I'm running up the stairs and you grab my ankle. Do you remember that?" His gaze hard, he shook his head.

"I was running from you because I was so scared, and you dragged me back down the stairs like some kind of horror film. And mom, do you remember what happened when you heard I was agnostic?"

"We tried to help you."

"You prayed for the demon to leave to me, and then I had to sit with Pastor Bill twice a week while he tried to 'bring me back to the light.'""That was all done out of love, Dorion," she said.

"You thought I had a literal demon in my body, and that's how everyone treated me at school and at church. Then I come home wanting to escape it for just a few hours and have to deal with you and dad. You were miserable all the time. We were always so afraid of setting you off."

"That's not true."

"And there it is. That's why this is doomed, mom. We don't live in the same reality. How can we ever talk about something if you can't acknowledge the truth?"

"Did you ever think you were the one who was screwed up? That it's your reality that is wrong, not mine?"

"For all of my adult life."

"I'm sorry I wasn't good enough for you." My mom looked at Beth next.

"I'm sorry to you too." Beth put her face in her hands.

"You always do that. Any time I ever tried to talk to you, you'd say something like that."

"Well, it's true. I am sorry I wasn't good enough."

"That's not a conversation, mom. That's not how you actually fix stuff. You always twist it like us being unhappy about anything is an attack on you personally. We could never actually address a problem and fix it. Ever. The Carmino way is to just stay angry about it for the rest of your life instead. Add it to the pile with everything else."

"Don't talk to your mother that way," my father said.

"Don't you see how much you're hurting her?" Beth screamed her frustration into her hands.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about!"

"We should have separated you and Dorion the moment he turned his back on God," he added.

"If we had protected you from his demons, you would have had a bright future." Standing, Beth said, "Well, this was fun."

"You can't leave yet!" my mom argued.

"We haven't had dessert. I made your favorite, that apple pie recipe you like so much." I followed Beth's lead, but I bent over to bury my face in Thunder's neck. The shouting around me continued, and I was likely the target for at least some of it, but her happy panting drowned it out. Instead of pausing at the door to put on her shoes, Beth scooped them up and walked to the car in her socks despite the snow. My mother bawled while I slid into my boots.

"Please don't contact us again," I said.

"No surprise visits. No waiting outside of our jobs. This is it."

"Wish I knew where we went wrong with you," my dad grumbled. Though I shut the front door behind me, my parents followed me out onto the porch. They stood there yelling as I stomped toward my car.

"It was a victory meatloaf!" my mom shouted.

"Tonight was a celebration. This is the Lord's house, and we are victorious! He blessed us, and you spit in his face!" I didn't say anything to Beth after I shut the driver-side door. I put the car into reverse to turn around, doing my best to block out whatever last words they wanted to hurl at us, and went dangerously fast down the driveway. We had to get out of there.