Page 25 of Mr. Big Stuff

I heard the giggling of my mother and father before Pops called out. “I thought we were doing lunch later, son.”

I fucking wish!

“We are. I just came by to chat before Charise arrived but it’s no big deal.”

“It was, if you came to see me.”

I could hear fabric moving around and the creak of the bed as if he were getting out of it. My father was who I got my size from and as a result when he moved, you heard him.

“I’ll be back, baby doll. Let me talk to our son.”

“Don’t take long, Daddy.”

Ewwwwwww.“Ma, could you please cut it out?”

“No one told you to come in here unannounced, Raymond.”

“Believe me, I regret it and probably will for the rest for my life.”

Their laughter irked my soul, so I hurried away from the bedroom wondering how I’d I feel like myself again after seeing the two of them naked and doing things I didn’t know could still be done beyond maybe fifty years old.

I felt my father following behind me but since I was afraid to turn around, I kept walking until I got to the kitchen.

“Raymond. Let me see your nose, son.”

I turned but was sure to keep my eyes high up on his face, because who knew whether he just jumped out of bed with his dangalang flinging around or not. At this point I felt like I didn’t know my parents.

He reached for my face and turned my head this way and that, before examining it with one hand that God knows what he’d done with. I closed my eyes and counted to five hoping that when I opened them, I would find out all of this was a dream.

“It’s not broken,” he said with satisfaction.

We were blessed to have a doctor in our house. It saved my parents lots of trips to the hospital with the scrapes, fevers and other conditions Charise and I got. He’d since retired from family medicine, but his experience would stay with him until his last breath. That thought reminded me of the blue folder my mother had me look at. Shaking my head of the thought I continued to look upward and not down.

“I have on a robe, boy. Come on over to the counter and sit down while I can get you some ice to place on your nose. Then maybe you can stop acting like a baby.”

“I kind of wish I was, that way I wouldn’t know what the hell I just saw.”

My dad chuckled but said no more. I watched as he dug into the ice maker, grabbed a handful of ice and placed it inside a Ziplock bag he pulled from the cabinet. The ease in which he moved around the apartment was like he was very familiar with where everything was.

“How long you and Ma been … you know…”

“We ain’t never stopped.”

He handed me the ice bag and I pressed it against my nose while trying to wrap my brain around this new discovery.

“You think because we divorced, we stopped loving each other?”

Looking into his face was like seeing a time machine. He is who I’d be in thirty or so years. It was then I realized why he was still getting it on and with the woman he loved with everything. But still...ewwww.

“No, I knew that you still loved each other but why even divorce if you’re gonna do all this?”

“Because we’re better not living together. And when we figured that out, we decided to be close to each other, loving each other, but having our space.”

“That’s an expensive realization.”

“It is, but love comes at a cost sometimes. It’s worth it to me and I have no regrets.”

“That’s pretty amazing, I just wish I never saw any of the cost, Pops.”

---