“Now, now, Pumpkin!” Grandma entered the conversation with a playful chiding voice that instantly had me on edge, since the last time we spoke to each other wasn’t exactly on good terms. “She gave you a compliment. A well deserved one, as I see. Take it as one.”
“Grandson.” I heard Grampa’s voice next, as he greeted me with a nod.
“Grandfather.” I imitated his tone as I returned the nod, before I returned to my work, not eager to start a discussion.
“I see you were busy.” he continued while looking around the room.
Mom and Ava were keeping themselves to the background, though they were looking at me with disturbingly bright smiles.
“Yeah.” I sighed somewhat exhausted. “Bathroom’s done and ready to be stocked. So is the kitchen. I also put in the carpet in Maggie’s room. Good thing you brought them along, because I get the feeling the bigger furniture is not meant to be dragged around after assembly.”
“I told them not to buy all that cheap Swedish stuff.” he shook his head, with an expression of silent suffering.
“It would have cost us a fortune to buy solid wood furniture, Dad!” John called out, as he and Danny entered the house carrying baskets full of small decorations and dust catchers. “Girls, how about you go into your rooms and figure out what goes where.”
With this, Ava and Maggie, followed by Granny, skipped into Maggie’s room first, from where we could hear their vivid discussion. Though, Ava planted a kiss on my cheek as she passed me.
“So, I take it, furniture alone wasn’t enough?” I asked, gesturing to the baskets John and Danny were carrying.
“Of course not!” Danny revolted. “They’ll have to live here, Tim.”
“If you say so.” I chuckled.
My chuckle died down when Mom took possession of my arm, the guilt flaring up yet again, though she didn’t let herself be influenced by that and simply kept smiling happily at me. She also kept that up the entire time we walked through the condo, so I could show them how much I had accomplished so far.
After everyone had gotten a firm grasp of what was left to do, we started assembling all the furniture, while Grandpa was outside taking care of the little green patch in front of the condo. Only then did Mom finally let go of me, though she and Ava made sure to stay close to me.
It took two hours before I finally managed to signal John that I wanted to catch him alone. Since the others were now all working in Ava’s room, I walked into the third bedroom which was furthest away from them and, about a minute later, John joined me.
“Sorry about showing up with the entire family in tow.” he started before I could even open my mouth. “Claire and Ava showed up this morning to talk with Danny, and then I couldn’t find a plausible excuse to not let the others come with me.”
He looked surprisingly guilty about this. And, as if to prove his point, Danny walked through the door at that moment to wordlessly stand next to him, regarding me with a curious look.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t think you’d call them intentionally after I told you that I needed to talk.” I waved his concern off. “So ... that contact you had for cleaning the money. Is that still an option?”
He thought about that for a moment.
“I guess so.” he mused, but then he looked at me alarmed. “This isn’t about Aaron taking your money, is it?”
“No.” I said, feeling embarrassed again. “You heard about that, huh?”
“Yes. Sorry. When the girls start talking, they’re not exactly quiet about it.” he chuckled, earning him a slap on the chest from his visibly unamused wife.
“Yeah. Great. Anyway!” I quickly continued to steer the topic away from what happened, not thrilled about prospect of learning how much they actually knew, and handed him the sports bag. “Think you can get them to clean that too?”
He opened the bag, looked inside, and then looked at me.
“That’s more than the last time.” he deadpanned with a raised eyebrow, as Danny pulled the bag towards her to look inside as well.
“It’s $450,000.” I informed him, and saw his second eyebrow lift to join the first one while Danny choked a little.
“Correct me if my math is wrong.” he started slowly, with a suspicious tone. “But, that would make $600,000 dollars you gave me to clean so far. Didn’t you say that you only kept ‘two or three’ bricks?”
“Well, I lied.” I shrugged, seeing their eyes widen in realization. “Shocker, I know! Do you think you can get them to clean it? If they keep their previous rate, they’d need sixty smurfs, and we should come out with $390,000.”
“The warehouses aren’t the problem. They have hundreds. Though, that amount could draw attention on our side if it comes in too quickly. Maybe we should let them work on it over the next few months. How quickly do you need it?”
“Three months, at the earliest.” I said, and he nodded. “So, since you two seem to have all the insight ... Why does Mom seem so disturbingly happy today?”
“Make sure we have a minute?” Danny asked while looking at John and placing a hand on his biceps, who simply nodded and left the room. She waited patiently for him to close the door behind him before she spoke again. “Despite what he said earlier, he doesn’t know what happened last night. He only heard your Mom and me talking because, when she told me about Aaron getting half of your money, she was angry and got louder.”
“But you know everything?” I asked, my voice dropping.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Tim.” she said firmly, pointing a finger at me. “What happened last night was a good thing! We’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. That’s why she and Ava are so happy today.”
That took me by surprise.
“I’m sorry ... what? How the hell was that a good thing!?”
Ignoring my incredulous tone, she sat down on the bed and patted the mattress with her hand, signaling me to sit next to her. When I did, she turned a little, so she could look at me directly.
“Tim ... every time something bad happens to you, what do you tell us?” She looked at me expectantly, but continued when she realized that I had no idea what she wanted from me. “You tell us that you’re perfectly fine! No matter how much obvious pain or distress you were in, it’s always been ‘I’m fine, I’ll manage, go on with your day’.”
“So?” I asked, not understanding how this could be of significance. After all, I was fine. I did manage.
“You were obviously NOT fine!” She sounded a little angry. “You weren’t fine when you were beaten bloody, you weren’t fine when I found you in the living room, you weren’t fine when you got stabbed, and you most certainly weren’t fine after you got shot and left alone in the hospital! But you kept insisting you were fine because you knew that...” She took a moment to compose herself, knowing that this would be the first time she openly admitted what their negligence had done to me. “Best case scenario, we wouldn’t care. Worst case scenario, we would use it to hurt you again.”
She was absolutely right. I had never thought about it to that extent, not even after Mom had said something similar when she moved into my apartment, but, hearing Danny say it in such detail, I knew she was spot on. Danny, John, and Mom wouldn’t have cared. Before last Thanksgiving, they probably wouldn’t even have noticed. Aaron would’ve made fun of it, since, no matter how serious my situation was, he was all too eager to find confirmation in his belief that I was less of a man than his Golden Boy. Logan would’ve used it to hurt me more, and Ava, in her quest to please the real men in her life, would’ve done everything they demanded of her to help.
“Now, you may not have outright said that you needed their help, but you did admit that you won’t be able to keep up if you don’t catch a break soon. You would have never admitted that if you didn’t finally trust them enough to not use that knowledge against you. You finally opened up to them! For the first time in years, you honestly told them how you felt. And, granted, telling Claire that you hate her for abandoning you doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it was necessary to start the healing, and I had already warned her that this would probably happen. Without that, she had no chance to ever rebuild your relationship. That’s why your mother and sister are so ‘disturbingly happy’ today.”