We're All Damaged by Matthew Norman

Author:Matthew Norman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781503933378
Publisher: Little A, New York
Published: 2016-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

24

Nancy stabs a green bean, looks at it, and then puts it in her mouth.

She chews and chews, like she’s pretending there’s more there than there is. There’s a skinny piece of grilled chicken on her plate and a limp stack of soggy vegetables. This is how she eats now.

My dad and I are splitting lasagna—a premade thing from the grocery store. He’s reading an article about birds, and she’s reading an issue of National Review, and I’m pretty much just sitting here. The grandfather clock is ticking in the entryway. I clear my throat, but neither of them looks up.

This is the third of these meals the three of us have endured together since I got back to Omaha. I imagine going up to their bedroom and having it be ’60s sitcom style, with two twin beds and long, elaborate dressing gowns.

I look at my dad and think of the man in the pictures. The whole stack is in my room, the manila envelope jammed into my old desk drawer. I looked at them last night as I was lying in bed and tried to imagine my dad having sex with whoever that lady is. And then I tried to imagine Nancy having sex. I didn’t have the advantage of a photograph, though, so my brain chose Sean Hannity from Fox News as her partner. So now that’s there in my brain, probably forever, the image of Sean Hannity having sex with my mother.

“So,” I say. “Dad, you said you’re serving on . . . a board?”

He looks up and nudges his reading glasses to the bottom of his nose. There’s a little hair of cheese hanging from his lip.

“What . . . kind of company is it?” I ask.

He looks at Nancy and takes a bite of lasagna. All of my talking has messed up the creepy silence. “An accounting advisory board,” he says.

As far as conversations go, that’s not much of a jumping-off point. I liked yesterday better, and all the days before that. Back then, I didn’t think about the complexities of my parents’ lives because I was busy obsessing over mine.

“Is that where you were today?” I say.

He swallows, and, unless I’m imagining things, it looks like a difficult swallow, a gulp. I watched him leave earlier this afternoon. I was watching Judge Judy, and he hopped on the motorcycle and wobbled out of the driveway. If he hadn’t been wearing a tucked-in yellow polo and khakis with pleats, and if he hadn’t nearly sent himself crashing into the shrubbery, he would have actually looked like a badass.

Nancy sets her magazine down.

“Yeah,” he says. “We had a meeting today. There are some conferences coming up.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, next time, let me know. Maybe I’ll go with you.”

He looks surprised. That’s actually an understatement. He looks stunned. “Really?”

I put some lasagna in my mouth. I’m like a poker player, bluffing with whatever cards equal a really shitty hand. I should mention that I have no fucking idea how to play poker.

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