* * *
Oliver hated retirement. He had tried to make the best of it
at first, after the doctor had told him that his back would never be what it
was and that going back to work was no longer an option. He had told himself
that now he would have plenty of time to catch up on the books he had always
meant to read, and the TV shows he had always meant to see. But now, after a
few months, he was more than ready to admit to himself that he was bored to tears.
Maybe if Ellis were younger, he would feel differently. But
Ellis was in high school now, and no longer needed or wanted the kind of
focused attention Oliver had given him in his younger years. Sometimes it
seemed like all at once he was losing everything that used to give his life
meaning.
Ellis hated high school. When he was a kid, everything had
been easy. He could spend all day playing in the park if he wanted, and as long
as he got his homework done, no one thought twice. Now all of a sudden he was
supposed to do hours of homework every night, and know what he wanted to do
with his life after high school. As a matter of fact, he did know what he
wanted to do – he wanted to open a bar, and had already found a business
partner – but that wasn’t good enough for the people who wanted him to have
dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman who wore a suit and sat
in a fancy office all day copying numbers from one spreadsheet to another.
His bedroom was the same as it had been for years, with his
teddy bear and his toy box and his space-themed sheets. Every time his dad
offered to remodel it for him, he had said no, using their finances as an
excuse. His dad’s medical bills had eaten most of their savings, and although
his dad tried to hide how bad off they were now, there were only so many rice
and bean dinners he could eat in a row without noticing that something was up.
The money thing made an easy excuse, but really, he liked things the way they
were. He still talked to his teddy bear when he was feeling lonely. He still
played with his robot to destress after school. He didn’t want anything to
change – what was so wrong about that?
One day, in desperation, Oliver bought himself a garden
starter kit. He couldn’t really afford it, but he needed something – anything –
to do besides spend another day watching TV. And gardening was one of the few
hobbies his doctor had said was okay. He justified it by saying that at least
if he started growing fresh vegetables it would cut down on their grocery bill.
He regretted ordering the kit almost immediately – it came
with only a few measly seeds, and both the spinach seeds turned out to be duds.
But he had to admit that digging in the dirt was a lot more satisfying than
another day full of soap operas.
He even bought a book about gardening – another thing they
couldn’t afford. He couldn’t even understand half of what the book was saying.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to work to understand something. It
was refreshing.
When he tried to explain the feeling to Ellis later, Ellis
only looked at him like he was crazy. One thing he hadn’t passed on to the next
generation was his drive to succeed. Ellis did try to keep up with his
homework, but mostly only because it made his dad happy, and because getting it
done was usually easier than getting lectures from his teachers. The further he
got into high school, though, the harder the homework got, and he worried that
eventually there would come a day when he simply wouldn’t be able to keep up.
Gardening was satisfying some of Oliver’s desire to succeed
at something, at least – so far he hadn’t killed any of his plants yet, which
the book told him was a major achievement – but he still couldn’t shake the
feeling of each day stretching endlessly out into nowhere. There were only so
many times he could water his plants in a day, after all. So he started going
for daily walks, and in the process meeting new people around the neighborhood.
It embarrassed him a bit to realize how little he knew any of his neighbors –
there was Aurelia Fish, for instance, who lived down the street and was raising
her two grandchildren on her own. He was able to pass along some tips to her,
having raised Ellis by himself. And there was Amara Anatole, from a couple of
blocks away, whose carefree attitude towards life reminded him a little of his
son.
It was talking to Amara that made him realize just how out
of practice he was when it came to socializing. A dramatic reenactment of the
day his ex-wife left him, for example, probably wasn’t the best thing to
include in his very first conversation with someone.
Maybe that was why she literally ran in the opposite
direction immediately after he was done telling that story.
It was meeting Amara that made him start to think about how
long it had been since he had been in a real relationship. He’d been on dates
here and there, but his last serious relationship had ended when Ellis was
still learning his multiplication tables. Maybe a little human companionship –
female companionship, to be precise – was what he needed to fill the void in
his life. While his bond with Ellis meant everything to him, he couldn’t deny
that sometimes he felt a little lonely knowing that their family would always
be just the two of them.
Those were the thoughts that led him to the Blue Velvet, the
town’s hottest – and only – club. He had never set foot in the place before.
Midafternoon probably wasn’t the best time to really experience all it had to
offer, but going to a club at night was more than he felt ready for just yet.
As he walked through the doors, he made a bet with himself. The first woman he
saw, he was going to ask her on a date.
The first woman he saw turned out to be Karissa Weinstein,
who got a dreamy look on her face as she described how she had turned her two
sisters against each other and set into motion a family feud that had lasted
years. Bet or no bet, something about her made his skin crawl. He abandoned
random chance for the old-fashioned idea of approaching a woman who caught his
eye.
He didn’t have to wait long for that to happen. Her name was
Kylie Grey, and there was a warmth in her eyes that made him forget why it had
taken him so long to take this step. They sat at a table talking for hours as
the sun went down outside and the dancing started up around them. She didn’t
even mind listening to him brag about Ellis.
He even got up and danced, something he had never imagined
himself doing before.
By the end of the night, things were heating up between
them, and his boredom was forgotten.
Soon they were getting together for dates almost every day.
Since she was retired too, they had lots of free time to spend together. They
would go to the park and do nothing but flirt for hours, and then find an
out-of-the-way shady tree to kiss under. Oliver felt like a teenager again.
On one of their outings in the park, Oliver found himself
thinking about marriage. He knew it was much too early for that, but he
couldn’t remember the last time he had been this happy. Maybe not since Ellis’s
mother. And he wasn’t a young man anymore – he needed to take his changes at
happiness where he could find them, before there were no more chances left.
So that day, right there in the park, Oliver proposed – and
Kylie said yes.
Ellis didn’t know what to think when his dad told him the
news. He didn’t think he had ever seen his dad like this before. His dad was
acting like a goofy teenager, and Ellis couldn’t say he liked it very much. And
he didn’t know what to think of Kylie – in the months since she and his dad had
started dating, he had barely said two words to her, and vice versa. But he
tried to be happy for his dad. He knew how hard the retirement had been on him
– he deserved something good in his life. He tried not to think about all the
ways this would change things. Someone new in his house, sharing his bathroom,
watching TV on his couch. And – ack – it would mean having a stepmother. All
his life, it had just been him and his dad. He didn’t know what it would mean
to bring a third person into that relationship.
Not to mention that whenever his dad and Kylie were in bed
together, even hiding under his cover with a pillow jammed over his ears wasn’t
enough to block out the knowledge of what was going on right across the house
from him.
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