Interlude - To Celebrate a Year

Keep moving forward, that was the motto I wanted to live by.

“Small, make sure to get in that report before you leave!”

“Got it!”

The world wasn’t kind enough to save wounded beings. I had to survive.

“Small, some of these numbers from Team 10’s presentation are wrong. Fix them!”

“Yes sir!”

To support my family, I could never stop working. I had to work from before the sun rose until the moon was at its apex. I even had to work today: New Year's Eve.

“Small, do you have the quarterly report for Team 5?”

“Yeah, I’ll email them to you in a few minutes.”

So I worked, and I worked. It had already been a decade since I started this hellish journey. Regardless, I kept moving forward.

Click-click-click-clack-clack-clack. My fingers ran across the keyboard, finishing up the third project I was working on.

“Small, you staying overtime?”

“Yeah, I still have four or five projects left to complete.”

My schedule wasn’t as busy today, so I would probably get back before the new year started. It would be the third time I saw my son when he was awake this year. Since tomorrow was New Years, I figured I should buy something to celebrate. Maybe, I’ll pick up a cake during my lunch break. I would text my son later to see what he liked.

After I finished up the fourth project, I stopped typing and looked up at the ceiling. It was a beautiful shade of white and one of my favorite places to stare when I needed a break. My hands and brain weren’t indestructible nor infallible, after all.

I closed my eyes and let my thoughts wander. Sometimes, I thought about what I needed to finish before I left. Sometimes, I thought about what kind of food I should make for my son to take for lunch tomorrow. Today, I simply relived a memory of my past, one that happened when I was just a young fool.

I was in my late 30s at the time. Back then, I had a stable job and a family to care for: a wife and a seven year old son. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my family, so I made sure to work only as much as needed. We had two sources of income, so there were usually no issues. It wasn’t a very eventful lifestyle, but it was peaceful. I wished those days could last forever, so much so that I avoided noticing anything that could hurt that life. If I hadn’t, maybe things would have turned out differently.

I remembered it was sunny on that day; only a few wispy clouds floated in the sky. I finished work around four in the afternoon and was driving home. I parked on the street in front of our driveway; there was a second car already parked there. That should have sent warning bells to my head, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. It wasn’t until I unlocked and opened the front door that I noticed something was amiss.

My son was loudly sobbing.

I dropped everything I was carrying at the front door and rushed to where the sobs were emanating. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t even closed the front door. As soon as I reached the dining room, I saw my son clinging to my wife’s dress, crying. I looked at my wife’s face; she was glaring at my son in disgust. The scene was so surreal that it took me a moment to notice the other person standing in the room. He was on the opposite side of my wife, holding her hand. A thought lingered in my mind as I looked towards the table. I saw a few pieces of paper with a pen laid on top of them.

I might have been oblivious, but I wasn’t dense. I knew what was going on. I knew what they wanted me to do. I didn’t know the reason, but that didn’t change the situation. This was the day I had lost my peaceful life. This was the day my wife left, never to return again. This was the day my son stopped being truly happy.

“I’ll take the lemon beer angel food cake please,” I said while pointing. I was currently on my lunch break. After getting a response back from my son on which cake he liked, I walked to a confectionery store five minutes from my workplace and ordered the cake. Luckily, they had one premade so I could purchase it on the spot.

“That’ll be $45.” That’s expensive for a cake, I thought. Nevertheless, I still bought the cake, taking out my phone and tapping it against the card receiver to make the purchase. Since there were still others in line waiting to order, I took a seat at one of the available tables until the cashier had time to pack up the cake. I let my thoughts wander once again while waiting.

Lemon beer huh? Such an odd flavor. I chuckled to myself. My son had the weirdest quirks when it came to food. I didn’t know why he developed such a habit, but ever since then, he had begun to express himself and open back up, if only a little. Still, no matter how much I thought about it, I never expected that to become the key. I closed my eyes and thought back to that day once again.

I was in my mid 40s; my son had just started his first year of middle school. Because of my son’s trauma, I had private tutors homeschool him through the rest of elementary school. My son rarely interacted with the tutors outside of doing his work, shutting himself in his room once they finished. I, at the time, had been living my current lifestyle for almost half a decade. I never had any time for my son; however, he never admonished me for it. All he did was thank me and return to his room. That kindness and his return to school made me want to do something for him.

Ultimately, I started making my son both breakfast and lunch. The first day, I made two hard boiled eggs for breakfast and some turkey sandwiches for lunch. It wasn’t a whole lot of food, but I didn’t have time in the morning to make anything else. My son never complained about the quantity anyways.

I got home from work that day and immediately walked towards the kitchen. My son and I had decided to communicate using sticky notes whenever we couldn’t meet up in person. This was typical since I only had time to see my son about five times a year. I walked into the kitchen and found a sticky note stuck on the fridge. I read the message on the note:

‘Too much mustard was on the sandwiches.’

Huh, okay then. I made a mental note to myself and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning and made the eggs and sandwiches once again, this time making sure to add only a dab of mustard. When I arrived home after work, I found another sticky note on the fridge:

‘Still too much mustard.’

But I barely put any on this time, I thought to myself. This time, I’ll get it right. I spent the next two weeks reducing the amount of mustard on the sandwiches trying to get the correct ratio. However, my son always replied with the same thing on the sticky note. I even tried removing the mustard completely one day to no avail. There was always too much mustard.

After two weeks, I finally had enough time to go home early. When I arrived at the door, I saw my son in the middle of cooking dinner. I decided to broach the subject.

“Hey.” My son turned towards me.

“Yeah dad?”

“Are you sure there was too much mustard on your sandwiches?” My son raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, all the sandwiches had too much mustard.” I stopped for a moment and made a thinking pose.

“But I hadn’t used any mustard on your sandwiches for the last few days.” My son stopped moving, remaining completely silent. A minute later, his cheeks gradually turned red.

“W-well…it’s because your knife had mustard on it beforehand!” my son yelled in embarrassment. What he said made absolutely no sense, and we both knew it. We stood there for a while. Then, we both started to chuckle. Not even a moment later, it became full blown laughter.

My son had finally smiled for the first time in five years.

“Hrrmm…,that should be all,” I said while stretching. I looked behind me at the clock on the wall. It was well into the night; there was no one in the office besides the janitor currently mopping the restroom floors. If I had not finished my work by now, I never would have made it home before New Years began. I quickly gathered my things and grabbed the cake I left in the break room. I sighed in relief that nobody had taken the cake with them. Then I rushed to the elevator, taking it down to the parking garage. I walked over to where my car was and unlocked the door, getting in and driving off. It was about an hour drive home even with the highway. That gave me time to think over what I would need tomorrow and any other stray thoughts that ran through my head.

Ever since the Mustard Inquisition (that was what I ended up calling it), my son had gradually begun to open up more. He talked about what he did at school and any clubs he attended. His grades tended to be all over the place depending on the year, but he always outperformed everyone whenever he got motivated. He even made some acquaintances and texted them during the evening at times. However, he never stuck around in any of the clubs or met up with the other kids outside of school. He remained like this all throughout middle school and even through the beginning of high school.

Then came his senior year of high school.

During the first day, he apparently got roped into some kind of group during lunch. Because of that, he began hanging out with the group every day. After a while, he started adding more and more sticky notes onto the fridge, each describing in detail what he did and talked about with those kids. It was the first time he had ever written down anything about school in detail. A month into the school year, there were so many sticky notes that he had to switch over to writing on a notepad. I was even more surprised when my son asked me if he could hang out at one of their places over the weekend. I agreed immediately, well after asking who was going to be there and where he was going. I had to be a good parent after all. When he got back on Sunday, he had written down ten pages filled with what he ended up doing there.

A small smile appeared on my face every time I read his accounts from that day onward.

I arrived home five minutes before New Years. I unlocked the door and walked over to the kitchen. After stashing the cake in the fridge, I walked around the house trying to find out where my son was. There weren’t too many rooms in the house, so it didn’t take long to figure out. I walked over to his bedroom. I was going to barge in initially, but then I heard him talking to someone. Instead, I quietly opened the door and looked through the gap.

I saw my son holding his phone. It seemed like he was video-calling a group of people, but I wasn’t able to get a good look at the screen to verify that. It’s probably the same group he’s been talking to during lunch, I thought. The kids and my son were talking about random things as New Years slowly approached. I heard them reminisce about a performance and mention what they were doing over the winter break. What made me the happiest though was when my son started to propose ideas on where and when they could hang out during the break.

I smiled to myself; my son had finally broken free of his curse. My vision grew slightly blurry. Oh, they’re tears. It had been a while since I saw my son acting so cheery. While I dried my tears, New Years was only a few seconds away.

“Okay, 5.” The kids began counting down.

“4.” I quietly opened the door until I could step inside.

“3.” I entered my son’s room.

“2.” I silently approached him.

“1.” I put my hands on his shoulders.

“““““Happy New Years!””””” My son jumped and turned around. He seemed to be surprised.

“Happy New Years, Lucas. Glad I could make it on time.” I put on a bright smile.

“Dad…” My son returned it with a genuine smile of his own. It warmed my heart to see him so happy.

“I’ve got cake waiting in the kitchen when you’re done talking with your friends.” I turned around, walking out of my son’s bedroom to the kitchen. I took out the cake, cut up two slices, and put them on the table before taking a seat.

Keep moving forward. That was the motto I lived by. After only a decade, my happy life had finally returned. My son was able to enjoy himself. I still barely had time to see him, but moments like this were well worth it.

After all, to me, this was true happiness.