Page 8 of Spark
“What’d Mom get you?” Cam peels back the wrapper of his second cupcake and eyes the decadent dessert with the same passion one would eye the lover of a torrent affair, heated and ready to devour.
Yes, the cupcakes are that good. I hope there are some left over for me to take home.
Thinking about my parents, a sigh escapes before I can reel it in, and I rub my temples with my free hand. “Mom got me a Rolex.”
“At least she’s consistent in her ability to totally miss the mark on what any of us likes or wants.” Aileene pats my arm. “What are you going to do with the watch?” She snags Cam’s cupcake just before he shoves it into his pie-hole. Or, I guess in this case, his cupcake-hole.
“Heeeey!” Cam lunges for Aileene, but she scurries behind me before he can reach her. “You can’t hide forever, woman.” He sticks his tongue out when she peers around my shoulder and bites into the stolen goods.
“Sell it and use the money for the scholarship fund.” Depending on the school, we could provide a scholarship to pay for a year or two of college tuition for the child of one of our employees with that money.
Bringing his attention from Aileene back to me, Cam asks, “And Dad?”
I grin. “You know what he got me.”
“A check for forty dollars? Did he at least send it in a birthday card this year since it’s a milestone birthday?” Cam’s disappointment on my behalf is sweet, and I love him for it. Since becoming a father himself, Cam is more and more baffled by our parents’ behavior. Probably because he’s the opposite of our parents and is involved and present in his child’s life.
Every year for our birthdays, our dad writes a check giving each of us one dollar for each year we’ve been alive. In the memo, his secretary writesHappy Birthday, and the check is sent in a business envelope, not a birthday card. According to our father, birthday cards are, “a waste of money.” Our mother, on the other hand, buys outrageous gifts. I mention I need a new band for my watch, and my mother takes that to mean I need a diamond-encrusted Rolex, which I will never wear. Who in their right mind can justify spending over fifty-thousand dollars on a watch?
After forty years and numerous conversations about them with my therapist, I’ve come to accept that our parents both try in their own way. They just never quite get it right.
“At least you’re old enough now to afford dinner for two at that diner you like.” Aileene scoots out from behind me, dramatically licking her fingers in Cam’s face.
“Including tip,” Cam deadpans as he swats at Aileen’s hand.
“Only if we get coffee and no dessert,” I retort, causing my siblings to snort. “I’m going to mingle.”
“Dude, it’s the break room, not a club. Speaking of which—” Cam’s words are cut off with a grunt when Aileene elbows him in the gut.
I laugh and make my way around the room, thanking everyone while checking in on how their families are doing. Several of our employees, both here and at our manufacturing site, have kids graduating from high school and college. I check with Jorge in Human Resources to see how plans for next month’s annual graduation ceremony are coming along. The ceremony is when we give out monetary gifts to the children of our employees who graduated, as well as scholarships. It’s one of my favorite times of the year.
Soon, Aileene slides next to me, grabs my wrist, and checks the time on my perfectly good Timex with its worn leather band. “Should we head up? I have a lot of work to do today.”
“Okay.” I wave to the room. “Thanks, everyone.”
The group waves, morehappy birthdaysare wished, hands are shaken, and backs slapped. Not for the first time, I note what a lucky man I am to have siblings I not only love but like, and to have grown this business with them. A business that has become a second family. I love what I do, love the people I work with, love my life, but I feel… I press on the heel of my hand to my chest.
“Heartburn?” Cam, always with a comment, grins. “Nothing saysoldlike heartburn. You want me to buy you some antacids?”
I smack my pain-in-the-ass brother upside of the head. “Shut up.”
He just laughs and jogs toward Aileene’s lab. “I call the wheelie stool.”
“He’s like a Golden Retriever puppy.” Aileene sighs with the mirth of an overindulgent mother. “He’s probably in there racing around.”
“I thought you banned him from stool races.”
She snorts. “Like that worked.”
Once situated in the lab, Aileene wastes no time sharing where she and her team are with the sustainable condoms they’ve been working on. She goes through the chemistry of synthetic resins with the same excitement and animation as Olive when she shows me all of her stuffed animals.
My sister is a brilliant woman whose passion for chemistry is one of the things I love about her but following all the scientific terminologies is not my forte. I glance over at Cam, whose bouncing leg doesn’t match the glazed-over look he’s sporting. Clearly, our sister got the scientific brains of the family.
“…because the materials we use are natural and more readily available, we will spend less on the manufacturing and can pass those savings onto the consumer. The condom is also thinner while being stronger.” Aileene’s non-scientific words rattle me out of the coma threatening to take over.
“Say that again.”
“The condoms are thinner while being stronger, and we can produce them cheaper.” She hands Cam and me samples. Then gives us each a sample from one of our current lines. “See the difference.”
