- Happy Family
His life sucked. His dad was sick, his mom was cheating and his dog got killed. Baylee didn’t know what else could go wrong now, and felt the tears streaming down his face as he ran along the busy streets of Atlanta. He didn’t care where he was or where he was going to. He’d left his mother standing in the middle of the mall, perplexed. He still couldn’t believe what she’d done. She didn’t even need to say it, he could see it in her eyes. It was clear as daylight, the silent, defeated confession hidden so well before, but shining so bright now.
He stopped briefly, panting, and took in his surroundings. He realized immediately that he was not supposed to be here when he saw the people around him looking at him eagerly. They were closing in on him, filthy and underfed, admiring the expensive clothes he wore and grabbing at the exceptional golden watch his grandfather had given him for his birthday last year. Granddad had tried to make him believe that the gift actually came from his father, but Baylee had known better. He’d known his dad had forgotten his birthday. He’d been unbelievably mad, and he knew he shouldn’t have been now, but he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t been as mad as he was now though.
“Fuck off!” he yelled at the small crowd surrounding him and watched proudly how they shrunk back. See, I can take care of myself.
He began running again, trying to find somewhere he could be in silence, because honestly, he had no idea where he was. He had thought that he could get home by himself, that he actually knew the way back, but he didn’t. Atlanta was big, bigger than he remembered and he hadn’t really been paying attention in the car on their way to the shopping centre. Slowing his pace, he could see he was approaching a park and slumped down on one of the benches, feeling like he had run a marathon. He really needed to do more sports and less videogames. Catching his breath, he hoped he had gotten out of the bad part of town.
“You wanna buy, you wanna buy?” A short, Indonesian man approached him with what seemed like a thousand sunglasses. Baylee tried to ignore him, but the man was persistent, shoving the shades into his face with a hopeful expression. He tried to shuffle back to the other side of the bench, but the man wouldn’t let him go. Baylee frowned, figuring he really didn’t need any sunglasses, since it was October and that if he did buy them, the place would soon be crawling with all of Indonesia’s friends, robbing him everything he had on him. His dad had told him that once, when they had been in Spain, he’d bought a cap from an Indian dude, and they had taken his wallet and punched him in the face. Baylee didn’t know if he believed the story, but wasn’t ready to take it into an experiment. Smiling politely, he inched back a little further, ‘til he reached the edge of the bench and then took off running again, finally reaching the edge of town and sliding down against a tree. He regretted running away immediately and wished his mom was there to pick him up. By now she’d probably already called the police. They were already searching for him, right?
After a while, Baylee figured he didn’t want to trust entirely on his good luck and decided he would find his way back to the shopping centre by himself. Sure, Atlanta was a big city, but it wasn’t a complete chaos, was it? There were probably signs that told him where to go, right? He sure hoped so, as he stood up, brushing the fallen leaves from his jacket and looked around. The street was long and lonely, not a soul in sight and Baylee sighed as he slowly made his way back, trying his hardest to remember the exact way he’d come here and how he needed to get back.
June 2014
He’d never seen so many tubes and needles in one person. That said a lot, because he had watched Grey’s Anatomy and ER. Frightened, he shrunk back, clutching his mother’s hand feverishly.
“Can we go home?” he asked and hated himself for speaking the question out loud. Mom turned around slowly and he could see the compassion in her eyes. He knew that this was hard for her, but at least she had known. They had only told him about what was going on with his father two days ago, the day of the surgery. Baylee wasn’t an idiot, he knew brain tumours were bad news. He’d been watching Grey’s Anatomy after all and when for some reason, whenever dr. Sheppard needed to do an operation, people died. But Dad hadn’t died. They’d been promised that one of the best neurosurgeons of the country was taking care of Brian and that the expectations weren’t all that grim. When Baylee had asked if the doctor was better than dr. Sheppard, his mother had laughed and assured him that, yes, he was a lot better, but unfortunately a lot less handsome. As he looked at his father now though, Baylee couldn’t help but feeling horribly scared.
“Oh honey, I know he looks a little scary, but it’s just to make sure he’s getting better, you know that, right?” Mom had said softly. It didn’t help anything to calm his nerves down. Only thinking about how the doctors had cut into his father’s brain to scrape and burn away some evil part of it, made him feel nauseous. He felt awfully reluctant to enter the dark room, but his mother dragged him with her. The room smelled of sterility and medication, and Baylee took a step back, refusing to go any further. He shook his head nervously, trying to break free of his mother’s grasp on his hand. He wanted to run, get out of the hospital and go home.
“No, please, I don’t want to…” he pleaded desperately. Mom turned around again, a little more irritated by his behaviour now and reprimanded him strictly.
“Baylee Thomas Wylee Littrell, your father would just like to see you. Can you be a brave boy and just say hi?” she asked sternly. Baylee didn’t answer.
“She’s right, you know,” a soft voice called weakly, a few feet away from them. Baylee looked up quickly and saw that his father had opened his eyes slightly, looking at them, clearly amused. “You’re not scared of me, are you?” he asked, raising what used to be his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” Baylee mumbled shamefully and looked at the ground.
“It’s alright Bay. Come here,” Dad invited and stretched out his hand. Baylee hesitated for a second, but then slowly inched closer to the bed and took his father’s hand. Dad smiled encouragingly at him and he smiled back, feeling a little better.
“See, I’m still me,” his father stated and looked up at him, expectantly.
Baylee nodded slightly and allowed himself to relax. This was his father after all. Sure, he may not look like it, with the pale skin and the countless bandages, tubes and wires surrounding his head, but Baylee did his best to look beyond that.
“Say, can I get a hug?” Dad asked and Baylee complied. Carefully avoiding all the medical hardware hooked up on Dad, he gently pressed his face into his father’s chest, feeling Dad’s arms surrounding him. Baylee smiled in relief, for beyond the smell of sterility and medication, Dad still smelled like Dad, and that was good enough.
