Where the Broken Lie by Rempfer Derek

Author:Rempfer, Derek [Rempfer, Derek]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Immortal Ink Publishing, LLC
Published: 2014-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

Later on that Mother’s Day morning, Tory and Grandma Gaines sit together on the front porch swing. Tammy cautions Tory to slow down and to stop leaning so hard on her great-grandma.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Grandma says. “I’m old, but I’m tough.”

“When I asked Daddy how old Great-Grandpa was, he said that Great-Grandpa is so old that when he was a little boy he ate whole loaves of bread and rode a bike with square tires. Did you have a bike with square tires when you were a little girl, Grandma?”

“Hey, you weren’t supposed to tell anybody I said that!”

Grandma laughs and tells Tory a few tall-tales of her own before taking my two ladies into the house to finish preparing lunch. Old family ghosts keep that empty swing moving and the chains clanking and I sit down next to them for a couple minutes before going inside to visit with Aunt Paula and my dad.

Dad was already in the easy chair watching a baseball game—the remote in his right hand and aimed at the TV, poised to raise the volume at a moment’s notice. Paula was sitting at the dining room table in the adjacent room, staring down at the Sunday paper through bifocals.

“Who’s winning?” I ask, sitting down on the chair next to Dad.

“Hi, Tuck,” he says. “Not the Cubs.”

There is a tension to our relationship that had not been there when we were both younger. When, perhaps, the role of father and son is more clearly defined. I think it started when Tory was born and he became a grandpa. The week after her birth, Dad bought—for the second time in his life—a 1967 Oldsmobile 442. The first 1967 Olds 442 he had bought, appropriately enough, in 1967. But I came along in ‘68 and he ended up trading in his muscle car for something more family appropriate. If this 442 doesn’t help him recapture some youth and glory, I’m going to recommend a 1980 DeLorean, some plutonium, and a flux capacitor.

When lunch is over, Tammy tells me, Dad, and Grandpa that the least we could do was to do the dishes considering the mothers had spent all morning making their own Mother’s Day meal. I start to argue, pointing out that I had offered to make hot dogs or mac and cheese, but Grandpa interrupts.

“The least we can do, huh? Well, never let it be said that Hollis Gaines won’t do the least he can do.”

Then he winks at Dad and me.

“Tucker, Ronald, to the kitchen.”

While we cleaned the kitchen, Tammy had gone to the florist to buy flowers for Ethan’s gravesite. When she returns, her eyes are red and she has mascara streaks down her face. She motions for me to come outside and I join her on the porch.

She starts speaking the second I close the door behind me and it’s as if I have joined her in the middle of a story she has already begun.

“So as I was leaving the flower shop, the lady behind the counter calls out to me.

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