Rufus Bent

Leaves sprouted from his fingers and his feet had taken root to the ground when he woke up in his recliner.  However, Rufus Bent was not alarmed. Though his family argued that he was too old and feeble to live alone anymore, he always knew he would stay on the land that once belonged to his granddaddy.
 
“Of course, never thought it'd be quite this way,” he said as he looked down at his trunk and gnarled knees.
 
The family was in the kitchen, but Rufus did not call out to them. When they left him to nap earlier, he expected they would pass the time arguing. From what he could hear, they still were.
 
“I don't care what Daddy says; he's going to that home! It's a good place. He won't get better care.” This from his son.
 
Rufus laughed. I ain't going nowhere now, he thought as he moved the branch that was his right arm.
 
He had already refused his daughter's offer to live with her in the city. He told her he wanted to go to sleep at night hearing the familiar and beloved sounds of the backwoods, not the blasts and clatter of urban life which never welcomed him when he visited those few times.
  
“Maybe we can find someone else to come and stay with Daddy,” she now said to her brother. “Someone who doesn't know him.”
  
Don't worry, baby angel. Won't be long now. I won't need a nurse. Maybe a gardener? He cackled, as happy as he could be under the circumstances.
  
A few minutes passed before his children walked into the room. Though he could no longer see them, he heard their gasps and cries.
  
“I don't believe this,” his son said. “He's gone.” 
  
No, I'm here, son, right where I belong. Rufus struggled to say more. Can you hear me? You'll always find me here.
  
There was no more he could do for them. As his last thoughts faded along with his voice, he hoped they would make common sense arrangements.
  
While his sister cried and dialed the phone, her brother reached over and closed his father's eyes.
  
“He looks so peaceful. Like he's asleep,” he whispered.
  
He pulled the blanket from the sofa and covered his father's body. His daddy always hated to be cold.
  
*  *  *
  
Note: The first line comes from a #storystarters prompt.

Voyages

Kat thought about how when she was a little girl and frightened or worried she would whisper to herself, Angels spread your wings around and protect me, repeating it as many times as necessary for calmness to return to her. She needed the incantation now. Her father lay dying on the floor.

They were in the study after returning from another visit to the doctor. Complications from bronchitis this time. Her father napped on the sofa while she read but awoke with a suffocating cough and tried to stand up. He reached out for her but she could not lift his weight, and he slid to the floor.

“No hospital,” he rasped. “No more. Please.”

She nodded, though she did not tell him that other family members had already called the ambulance and were waiting outside for the paramedics.

Her father looked at her and smiled. Just yesterday he told his daughter he was ready to go. “Look how old I am,” he had said. “I've done everything I wanted, your mother has been gone for so many years, and you're all grown up. There's nothing left but the waiting.” 

As Kat sat on the floor holding her father's hand and stroking his hair, she knew that no matter how much she wished it, he would not recover from this bout of illness. She was resigned and accepted this truth, and would wait with him.

He had loved the sea, and as a young man he left an accounting job to join the Merchant Marines. Kat and her mother would welcome him home with joyful kisses during his months-long leave, and send him off with tearful ones when he returned to the ships. His stories around the family table after the dishes were done told of Lucullan seafood dinners along the Mediterranean shore, rollicking taberna-hopping, bullfights in Spain, and wistful moments lying awake on the ship's deck, with smoke rising from his cigarettes to meet the stars in a Greek night. Frayed photographs showed him sitting with friends in a French cafe with cup in hand, intensity in his light eyes, and a black beret rakishly gracing his right profile.

“You're just like a character in an Ernest Hemingway story,” Kat told him once and made him laugh.

Whenever he returned from his voyages, his usual shout of, “Where is my Pussy Kat?” brought her running down the stairs shrieking and answering with, “Where are my presents?” The first time her mother admonished her for this, her father shushed his wife. “Just our little joke,” he said.

Now, his voice whispered, “I am so tired.”

They heard the sirens of the approaching ambulance. Her father closed his eyes.

“Angels spread your wings around and protect him,” Kat said, and went to tell the others.

The Woods

Billy Parker is famous tonight. And not just because his shots at the state police helicopter ruptured the fuel tank and forced an emergency landing, though that feat makes him mighty proud. His daddy tried to teach him to hunt deer, but it was always Billy's four brothers who brought down the bucks at the end of the day.  

Lookie now, daddy, he thought as he stopped to rest against a tree in the Virginia woods, hands gripping the high powered rifle, listening intently. I finally bagged me something big.

What brings Billy notoriety this cold winter evening are the five bodies back at the house.

It was Wade from the gas station who found them earlier when he came by for their weekly cards and booze. He ran out to the yard, crying and spewing his dinner, before he drove to the neighboring farm for help. When Sheriff Walker arrived, Wade grabbed his arm and told him the Parkers are dead except Billy because “his body ain't lying in there.” The Sheriff nodded.

The other teenagers down at the Piggly Wiggly once told him, “Billy's not been right in the head since his mama passed.” Since then he always thought something awful would happen. There were too many nights he was called in to stop the drunken beatings. Yes, he worried about the boy.

The manhunt tracked Billy to his present location, a rural area thick with trees that gave way to large clearings. He knew he had a final decision to make since he could hear the hounds and see flashes of light. It was harder before, when the jumbled voices in his head cajoled too fast and too loud, and were of no help. But a few minutes ago, they ceased their shouts and whispered their goodbyes.

They'll come back, dammit, he said out loud. They always do.

His pursuers arrived. Billy stood up and walked away from the tree in calm and unavoidable surrender.

Blue Ribbon

Before he left for good that morning, Norman made a large pot of soup for the family while they slept. Grannie Sperr's award winning Country Baked Potato Chowder was a crowd pleaser, and he always added it to the dinner menu as comfort food during many bleak winter nights.

He rushed through final preparations. He normally took the local train to work, but today he wanted to meet the 6:10 Express, and he needed time to walk to the station. Usually he drove whenever he went out, but he was sure his wife would need the car today. He arrived with 15 minutes to spare and, despite the cold, sat alone on the bench outside to wait.

Moving to a gated community in a picturesque town a mere 45 minutes from the city was the best decision he made all those early years ago. He read the paper and drank coffee on the train to his job and his six-figured salary; his wife stayed home with the children. They were comfortable and did not worry about the price of anything. House needs a new roof? Done. Car needs work? Write a check.

Investing most of their money with a respected Wall Street guru was the worst decision he made all those years later. He called it financial planning. The legal authorities called it a greedy scam of such magnitude, no one could hope to recuperate losses.

The train's approaching whistle startled him away from his thoughts. He stood and walked to the edge of the platform. The train would not stop, of course, but he did not need that. He inhaled deeply.

“Hey!”

The shout from the stranger made him turn.

“Be careful! What are you doing? This train doesn't stop here, it's express all the way!”

Norman blinked and moved back a few steps. The stranger grabbed his arm and pulled him further away.

“Jeesh, Don't understand you people. You like to stand so close to the end. Could get hurt or worse.”

* * *

“You're home early, hon. Slow day at the office?” Ada said as her husband came in through the back kitchen door.

Norman placed the grocery bag on the table, took out a package, and leaned over to kiss her smile.

“Yep...I figured I could get a head start on crisping the bacon. Forgot to do it before.”

Ada stood and walked over to the pots and pans hanging on the wall next to the stove. “Oh, is it soup night, then?” She handed him the cast iron skillet.

“I thought it was. For you.”

She laughed. “You mean for us, or aren't you having some?”

Norman nodded and turned to the stove. “Who could turn down Grannie's Sperr's chowder on such a night.”

As he crumbled the bacon, he thought about tomorrow.  He hoped he would find another good reason to come home then too.

Sassy Love

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. ~Ogden Nash



Harry has lived in New York for several years now, and planned to visit his parents in Arkansas for one week during the holiday season. He does not go home that often because he is miffed at his mother -- for many reasons, though one in particular rankles him the most. Harry is the youngest of four boys, and when he left home to find fame in New York theater, his mother replaced him with a squirrel.



Yes. That's correct. Sassy the Squirrel now has the run of Harry's childhood home in Little Rock. A year ago, his mother found the baby squirrel lying injured and abandoned in their backyard and nursed it back to health. Now, she is a coddled member of the family.

Sassy sits at the head of the table and nibbles on peanuts while the others eat dinner. At night she sleeps in a towel-lined basket in what was once Harry’s bedroom.

Not surprisingly, Harry’s two best friends in New York laughed at his tale of woe but tried to help him the only way they knew. They took him to a bar.

“Is your little sister cute?” This from Mikey, who grinned when Pete sprayed beer with his shout of laughter.

“Does she say cheese for the camera at family pictures? Or acorn?”

Harry ordered another round. “Not helping, you guys. That rodent should hunt for things in the woods and sleep in a damn tree!”

The bartender brought the drinks and leaned over the bar. “Whatcha buying her for Christmas?”

Mikey and Pete sprayed more beer.

Harry left New York several days later. His friends called and wished him a “happy holiday at Sassy's house.” They also reminded him that he should be polite once there because, after all, when he finally came out to his family, the one member that took it in stride right away was...

Well, you know.

Harry will stay in the guest bedroom. As he found out the last time he was home, Sassy prefers to sleep alone.

Not a Platonic Dialogue

It happens every year. Eating. Drinking. Stories. Hurt feelings. Forgiveness.

Better remembered as dinner at Dela’s.

But today she had a plan, a catalyst for change. Her family arrived minutes before the meal, and instead of grace, she gave a pep talk. The theme? Love. Though, just as the pilgrims probably advised everyone at their maiden meal on new land, she told the family  to check their fighting implements at the door. 

She sat at the head of the table and gathered the rest of her thoughts. Her family did not wait to hear them.

BROTHER:  Nope, don’t wanna deal with any love business. Just give me D&D. Drinks and debauchery. NOW you’re talking!

Dela frowned. This is not about boozing and one-nighters, she thought. Her brother could do that any time. This is about family and love. 

And stew.

DELA: You guys, just think.  Everything that happens — the good, the bad, and the…well, anything else — are like ingredients.  And, while some things don’t taste that great all alone, mixed together they can add a delicious spicing to the rest of the pot. Right?

SISTER: We’re having stew for dinner?

BROTHER: I don’t like stew!

DELA: No, no, it’s not really about stew.  It’s about how family love is a mix of all the things that happen to us and make our lives rich and bubbly and...

SISTER:  You know perfectly well that I’m a vegetarian, so don’t even think of adding any sodding meat to that pot!

She dated a man from England, so the family made allowances.

DELA: You’re not paying attention.  I’m trying to explain that though we sometimes don’t agree on so many—I mean—a few things, we really love each other and we should celebrate.

BROTHER: I’m not loving the idea of stew. Really.

MOTHER: I want turkey.  I hate it but damn-it-all, it’s tradition. I did not just drive three hours to come and eat vegetable stew!

UNCLE MARYLAND: No problemo.  I bagged a 6-point buck this past weekend. So let’s add it to the pot.  Look! I got me a photo.

He took out his wallet, which was a No. 10 standard white envelope, and passed the picture of him in camouflage attire with his victim. Uncle Maryland is grinning and giving two thumbs up. The deer is not. The family all murmured distress sounds.

UNCLE MARYLAND: Man, what a lucky day. Yeah, it was.  Hey! You can say I got game. That’s right. I got game!

He danced around the table until he had a coughing fit and had to lie down on the sofa.

DELA: Stop. We’re not eating stew. We’re not eating 6 points of deer. We’re going to spend a lovely time eating other things and drinking—God, yes, drinking—and telling wonderful stories and giving thanks for all we have.

SISTER: Actually, my investments are still at the bottom of the toilet. I don’t have all that much. So piss off!

DELA: Oh? On your investments?

BROTHER: O.k. I’m thankful we’re not eating stew.

MOTHER: Oh, good. Though I feel bad for Dela. She does love her stew. Can you imagine? Love and stew on Thanksgiving.  She always was an odd child.

Dela stared at the Spode dinnerware she inherited from Granny Edna and realized there was only one more thing to say to her family. 

In all the earlier planning, she forgot to turn on the oven

UNCLE MARYLAND: So? When do we eat?

〜 〜 〜 〜 〜

About 20 minutes later, the pizzas arrived.