Chapter 6
Mark drove home with a smile on of his face. Even though the brakes on the truck were suddenly squealing much louder, and the engine was making a terrible clunk, clunk sound. The whole truck was starting to shudder every time the engine tried to turn over. But even that could not damper his good mood. It was like that splinter the that had been digging under his skin, driving him absolutely mad, that feeling had finally left him. He had a replacement part.
And he couldn’t wait to get home and put it in the table, and then he could focus on important things. Like his wife, and like trying to be the dad that he hoped he could be. He did it. He successfully took care of Coralina and Beth. They might not understand how important it was to them him that he took care of little things like if he broke their toy he would fix it. He could still remember his dad for taking that Nintendo sixty-four and slamming it into the wall cracking it to smithereens. It was never replaced. It wasn’t even his fault! His dad picked up the Nintendo and he smashed it into the wall repeatedly because he lost his job. It had nothing to do with Mark.
Who paid the price? Just that little ten-year-old kid. And he still remembered the pain of his wonderful present being destroyed before his very eyes. And he was probably overcompensating by running all over town looking for a tiny little dollhouse table leaf, but… Abuse runs in family lines. And Mark was terrified that he would catch it.
The truck rumbled into the garage, and finally was grateful for his turning of the key. He got out, closed the garage door and immediately went into the house. Coralina screamed, “Daddy!” And charged at him leaping into his arms. He smiled and couldn’t hardly stop grinning at the child.
“I got that part of your table that was broken. It took me all day.” He said.
Coralina did not care. She just said “Oh. Can you teach me how to get a solo in the choir?”
He ruffled her blonde little curls with his big meaty hands. “Go sing a song.”
And Carolina did exactly what her father said, standing on the couch and singing at the top of her lungs. The song she picked, was a raunchy dirty number about drinking a lot of liquor. And Mark made a mental note to stop allowing the children to listen to the public radio.
“Hey Beth. Do you want to see the part I got you?” He said to his littlest daughter.
She smiled at him and nodded.
“Can’t you just say yes?” He said, holding out his hand with it covering the little table piece.
“Yes.” She said. But she didn’t say any follow-up words, Mark wondered if she was going to need to be in speech class. At some sort of counseling class. Was this his fault? Should have talked to her more as a baby? Did have something to do with him not reading? Because he hated reading to kids, but if reading would help, he would read.
She let out a squeal of delight when he dropped the table leaf into her hand. She immediately ran over to the dollhouse and carefully placed it in between the ends of the table. And then she turned and came back and put it back in his hand.
“What’s wrong?” He said he asked, his stomach turning with frustration.
“Don’t fit.” Said Beth, and with that two word speech, she went back to playing with the dolls.
“I’m sure it fits, I’m sure.” He walked over to the dollhouse with her and sat on the ground. Very calmly he set the leaf in between the two ends of the table. It was clearly the wrong size. He turned it and tried to put it in the location that it it had been stored. Hoping that at least the table clicked shut again, with the added weight of the tiny little table leaf. But it wouldn’t fit that direction either.
It was like getting a splinter out, and realizing that he only got half of it out. The other half is now buried deep under the skin, maybe infection will push it out. Or it could be dug out with a knife.
He started to heat up nuggets and french fries for dinner. But he was so disgusted. He didn’t even bother to heat any up for himself.
He have to go back to that crazy guy.
