For some reason, they both regarded me with yet another alarmed look. It wasn’t sadness about me not wanting to fix what they broke. It was more like they were genuinely concerned for some reason, when I finished my little rant. Then Grandpa suddenly burst out his question, in a hurried tone.
“But ... but you’ll show up for Thanksgiving, right?”
I thought about that for a long time.
“Sorry, Grampa, but I don’t think so.” I finally answered while leading them to the door and showing them out.
I went to bed that evening contemplating their strange behavior. I could accept them being put off by me leaving, especially if they finally realized why I left. But I simply couldn’t understand where those repeated alarmed looks came from. If they were worried about something, they should just come out and tell me.
The next morning, I was awoken by my phone ringing. It was Bill.
“Yeah?” I asked, trying hard not to sound like I had just slept eleven hours for no apparent reason.
“Listen, Kid. I need you to come to the office real quick. My laptop is somehow frozen and it may froze while showing something I wouldn’t want the wife to see.”
“Did you try turning it off and on again?” I asked, smirking about how true that famous line from ‘The IT Crowd’ was.
“Can’t. I was working on a proposal I haven’t saved yet.”
“You don’t want your wife to see a proposal? Is it for your girlfriend?”
“I was ALSO working on a proposal. Happy now? How about you try to be less of a smartass and more of a loyal employee that doesn’t ask so many questions!” he said, before hanging up the phone.
I made my way to the office in my rusty Junker-Jeep and quickly took care of Bill’s laptop by killing the Firefox process. I made a mental note to add the thirty-minute drive to my timesheet, instead of just the one minute it took to open the task-manager, when Bill spoke.
“Tim, do you know anything about digitizing VHS-Tapes?” he asked.
“Yeah, did it before. It’s not that hard, just tedious. You need a VHS-player with separate audio and video outputs to plug into a capture device. Problem is, you can’t really do anything while the video plays.”
“Good. That’s pretty much what the guy in the store told me as well. I’m working on an anniversary gift for my wife, but my twenty-year-old VHS-player doesn’t have any ports for the new capture-thing I bought at Walmart. Here...” he said, moved over to a cabinet holding everything he purchased so far and asked me to look at it.
“Oh, there’re adapters for that. I’ll go get one and help you set it up. Give me ... two hours?”
He nodded and then I made my way out the door.
Since he bought the capture device at Walmart, that’s where I went for the adapter too. When I reached the electronics section and looked through the various adapters they had on display, I heard familiar voices drift over from the next aisle.
“Mom, stop freaking out. Slow down! He won’t want anything!” That was Logan’s annoyed voice. “Let’s just get a cake or something if we absolutely have to.”
“No, dammit! I can’t believe this happened again!” Claire answered in an almost desperate tone. “It’s too late for cake ... I need something better. Why does none of you know anything!?”
“Honey ... I told you, I don’t know anything about this geek stuff. The kids don’t know either Wouldn’t it be better to just get him money, instead of an obvious last-minute attempt he probably wouldn’t like anyway?” Aaron asked in a distinctly disinterested voice.
“Yeah, Mom, Daddy’s right. I mean, did you look at his room before he moved out? There was nothing really showing what he’s into. Other than his computer and fridge.” Ava added.
Apparently, the whole family was there.
Had I misjudged Claire? She seemed to be genuinely pissed at herself for forgetting about my birthday again. Though, if she was now genuinely upset about it, how could it happen in the first place? And two years in a row, no less. No, more likely, her frantically looking for a present was in no way caused by guilt or her being pissed at herself. She was probably sent here by her parents, who were angry that she failed to fix our relationship. Or possibly even blaming her for the clusterfuck their visit had turned out to be, because they believed the family’s bullshit excuses last year.
The others seemed to care just as little as I expected them to. Getting me money as a present? Over the fourteen weeks since Logan had left for college, they shamelessly helped themselves to $2,200 from my bank account to pay for Logan’s ‘college stuff’. And now they wanted to give me a $50 Amazon voucher and call it a fucking gift! Fucking priceless.
“How about something for his car?” Claire suggested.
“Sure. Maybe an air freshener.” Logan said dismissively.
“I’m afraid Logan has a point, honey. I took a look at his car a while ago. It’s a miracle the thing doesn’t just fall apart whenever he drives over a speedbu...” Aaron answered, but his voice suddenly cut off.
They had rounded the corner as Aaron was shit-talking my beloved Jeep, and quickly spotted me standing in the aisle. I didn’t want to give any indication that I overheard them talking, so, instead of looking in their direction, I grabbed the adapter I needed like I had just found it after intensely looking for it, and calmly went to pay. They caught up to me in the parking lot when I was just opening the car door. For some reason they kept a good fifteen feet distance from me. Aaron seemed to be the first to find the resolve to talk.
“Tim. What are you doing here?” He asked, and I turned my head to him with fake surprise on my face.
“Hello to you too, Aaron. Boss got the wrong part for a project. I was looking for the right one.” I answered, consciously trying to sound aloof, as I held up the adapter.
“Well, maybe this is for the best.” Claire said, sounding resigned. “Truth is, we’re sorry, Baby...”
Just like Aaron in the store, she didn’t get to finish her sentence, since the last word she spoke was overshadowed by Logan shouting a loud “OH SHIT!” as three guys stepped past him, positioning themselves between the family and me. For a moment it looked like Logan wanted to run, but I could see one of them was holding him by the arms. Like they had expected him to try that. All of them seemed to be in their mid thirties to early forties, so even if they had refrained from immediately restraining Logan, it would have been clear that they were not some friends of his.
“We’ve been looking for you, Logan. Hiding away with Mommy and Daddy?” the guy holding him said. Logan looked mighty uncomfortable with that and was trying to play it off.
“What? I ... I’m just visiting home for the Holidays!” he answered with almost no panic showing through.
I placed my shopping-bag in the car, leaned my back against it, and lit myself a cigarette. If Logan was about to get his ass kicked, I wanted to enjoy the show, and this was the next best thing in the absence of popcorn.
“Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but we’re still waitin’ for our money!” came an angry answer.