Picture Perfect

by Hayden Hunt

  Not because someone didn’t like my photos, that doesn’t matter that much to me. It was really because I don’t want anyone to be disappointed about their own wedding pictures. It’s not as if they can go back and have them redone. That day will be gone forever, so I always try to capture it perfectly.

  “So, I was thinking…” he began nervously, as if he wanted to share something that he thought I wouldn’t like.

  I swiveled around toward him, “Yes?”

  “I know we don’t have a baby yet, and, I know there isn’t a guarantee that this one will be ours, but… but maybe we can start decorating the nursery anyway?”

  We had already decided that the spare room would be the baby’s room, it’s the only thing that made sense. But, right now, it’s just an empty space.

  “You want to decorate?” I asked.

  He sighed, “I know that’s probably stupid, and, it might make it hurt worse the longer we wait for a baby, but… but, I want to so bad. I want to feel like I’m moving toward fatherhood. And, right now, I just don’t feel that way. I feel stagnant.”

  “I understand completely,” I told him. “And I think that’s a great idea.”

  He grinned, “Really?!”

  “Absolutely! Why not? I mean, even if this next baby isn’t ours, we’re going to have one some day. You can’t be too prepared, right?”

  Plus, I can see it will really make Pat happy. He’ll get to paint the room, shop for baby stuff, nest. He’s been pretty depressed lately. I know he wants to be a father now, and not knowing how much longer it’ll be was weighing on him. This way, he’ll get to feel like a father.

  “Okay, so, I was thinking gray and pale yellow.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”

  “For the baby’s room, of course! We have to go gender neutral since we have no idea which we’ll eventually have. I think pale yellow and gray stripes on three walls, and, then, on the fourth wall, we’ll do a big painting of an elephant.”

  I had to laugh, “An elephant?”

  “Oh, yeah, in addition to the grey and yellow, I wanted to go with an elephant theme. It’ll be cute with the grey, I think! We’ll paint a big grey elephant with a pale yellow background.”

  “And by we, you mean you, right?”

  I may be a good photographer, but I was shit at all the other arts. I wasn’t creative enough to paint or draw. My mind didn’t work that way. Photography worked for me because it was art meets logic.

  Pat wasn’t bad, though. Because he was all creative, all the time. I’m sure he could do a little cartoon elephant, no problem.

  “Okay, yeah, I’ll do that part,” he rolled his eyes. “But, you’ve got to help me paint the stripes!”

  “Okay, yes, I’ll help paint the stripes.”

  “Perfect! You want to go get some paint?”

  “Right now?!” I asked, surprised.

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “You want to work on this, like, today?”

  “Definitely!”

  Painting was definitely not what I wanted to be doing with my day. And, I wasn’t big on trips to the home improvement store, either. But, how could I deny Pat this? It was the happiest I’d seen him in weeks.

  “Okay, fine, let’s do it. But, you know we’re going to need to wake up extra early tomorrow to work on these photos and make up for the time lost, right?”

  “Not an issue!” he said, cheerfully, “Thanks, babe,” he kissed me on the cheek.

  “Not a problem. Let me go get some clothes on.”

  Another big benefit to working from home was the lack of pants needed. I was still in a white t-shirt and boxers, and, many days that I edited photos, that was all I ever wore. Can’t say I miss the days of jumpsuits.

  When I came back out after getting changed, I saw that Pat was on the computer. I thought maybe he had opened up some of the photographs he had taken and was working on them.

  “What are you touching up?” I asked, as I popped in behind him.

  “Oh, nothing, just online shopping.”

  I could see that he was on the baby-is-us website, looking up elephants. Elephants were all he searched, and a ton of different things popped up. Stuffed animals, onesies, mobiles, teethers. Any baby product you could think of apparently came in ‘elephant.’

  I was going to insist that he get up and we head to the store, but, when I saw the gleam in his eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He was obviously so happy right now. No reason not to let him shop for a few more minutes.

  I sat down on the couch and went through my phone as I waited. I noticed that I had a missed call from an unknown number and had a voicemail. Weird, I hadn’t even noticed that someone had called me. Maybe my phone had been on silent.

  I went to my voicemail and played the last message.

  “Hi, Patrick and Richard, it’s Anna. We, uh, had an adoption interview last week. I probably shouldn’t say this on a voicemail, but I wanted to tell you before I made it all official with the agency… I picked you guys. We just had such a great connection, and I think you both are going to make really great fathers. I’m really looking forward to getting to know you more throughout my pregnancy. Sorry, I had to just put that out there because I’m really excited about you guys. I’m sure I’ll hear from you soon!”

  Tears were filling up in my eyes, and I couldn’t even bring myself to speak.

  Pat turned around, “Hey, what do you think of this crib—,” he realized I was crying. “Oh, god, babe, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I answered honestly. “Nothing at all… I just.. Anna called me.”

  “Oh, no, don’t tell me it’s happening again…” He sighed, completely misunderstanding my tears.

  “She picked us,” I muttered.

  His eyes went wide, “What?”

  “She… she picked us.”

  He jolted out of his chair. “Oh my god! Are you saying… we’re going to be fathers?!”

  “We’re going to be fathers,” I smiled through bleary eyes.

  I jumped up too and hugged the shit out of him. I felt a happiness I hadn’t felt since the day we had eloped. It was a moment equally as monumental, if not more so.

  “It’s finally happening!” Pat cried. “We’re going to have a family.”

  Technically, we’ve always been a family, the two of us, but it never felt like it was totally complete until this moment.

  “It’ll be perfect,” I whispered to him. “It’ll be picture perfect.”

  He kissed me, “I love you so, so much.”

  “I love you too, baby.”

  I thought my life had felt complete when I had married Pat. And for awhile, it had been. But nothing could compare to how complete I felt in this moment.

  This was it. This was how my life was always supposed to be.

  I felt whole.

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  Cold Turkey

  13

  Daniel

  “Thank you!” I said cheerfully to the taxi cab driver as I handed him cash.

  “No problem, Happy Thanksgiving!”

  “Happy Thanksgiving to you too!” I said as I grabbed my suitcase out of the backseat and started walking toward my parents’ front door.

  I had this weird mix of excitement and nervousness going. But I needed to do this, it had been a long time coming. I hadn't been home for Thanksgiving in six years.

  To be fair, that wasn’t all my fault. My rocky relationship with my parents was a two-way street. I may have not do
ne much to mend our relationship, but neither had they. And they were the adults in the relationship.

  But I was an adult now too. Well, technically I’d been an adult since 18, but everyone knows you’re still essentially a child at that point. I matured slowly over the past several years. I finally felt like I was at a point where I could take the first step in improving our relationship.

  I was their only child after all. I had no siblings, nobody else to call my family. And, admittedly, I was pretty lonely because of this.

  I guess that was the whole reason I decided to come out here in the first place. I made the decision three weeks ago when I overheard my coworkers discussing going back home for the holidays. We had a very generous chunk of time off for Thanksgiving and most people took advantage of that by traveling to their home towns.

  I usually just used the extra time to lounge around my apartment, binge watching TV shows and eating Chinese food leftovers on Thanksgiving day. Which never bothered me before. In fact, I enjoyed not having to fight with my family over the holidays.

  But I guess as I’d grown up and started to think about settling down with my own family one day, it made me reflect on how shitty things were with my own. And I didn’t want to continue down this path with them.

  The first few years I missed Thanksgiving with them, they asked what my plans were or if I planned on coming home. But after a few years of rejecting their offers, they stopped asking. They didn’t even mention it this year.

  But that was perfect because it gave me the opportunity to drop in on them by surprise. It made me a little nervous just showing up at their house after so many years of not coming home, but I was their son. I knew as soon as my mom opened the door, she was going to be thrilled I took the initiative to come here.

  At least, I hoped she was. I hoped they both were.

  I started pulling my suitcase up the rocky gravel of their driveway. They desperately needed it repaved. The whole house was slowly falling into disarray. The grass was way too long and dying in some spots, and paint was chipping off the wood panels.

  It was an old house, but I was kind of surprised to see this. My father was pretty good with his hands and he used to be meticulous about keeping the lawn nice and green. But maybe as they’d gotten older, he hadn’t been able to keep up with it as much. He did work a lot. I was always amazed he was able to find time to do anything around the house honestly.

  I rang the doorbell once, my heart racing as I waited for my mom to come to the door. Undoubtedly, my father would be on the couch glued to whatever football game was on television.

  But minutes passed, and nobody came to the door. I rang it once more, starting to tap my foot with nervousness.

  Still, nobody answered. This was weird—where else would they be at this time on Thanksgiving? They didn’t know I was coming but I very specifically asked them if they’d be home on Thanksgiving for this reason. They had told me they would be, that they would just be cooking at home like usual.

  I tried to peek in through the blinds of the window to see if any lights were on inside, but I couldn’t see anything. I rang the doorbell once more and then decided I would give my mom a call.

  I didn’t want to do that; I really wanted the surprise to be in person. But what else was there to do at this point?

  “Hello?” she answered, sounding surprised to hear me call on Thanksgiving.

  “Hey, Mom, where are you?” I asked.

  “I’m at home, sitting at the kitchen table. Why do you ask?”

  “You haven’t heard the doorbell ring?” I asked, hoping to somehow still preserve the surprise.

  “No, we don’t have one.”

  I was completely confused and starting to think she wasn’t hearing me right.

  “Mom, no, the doorbell,” I emphasized. “Have you heard the doorbell?”

  “I told you, we don’t have one.”

  “Don’t have one what?”

  “A doorbell.”

  I started to get a little scared at this point. We’d had a doorbell the entire time I lived here. This was the only house I grew up in. Was something wrong with her? My mind immediately went to early Alzheimer’s or dementia or something. How could she forget we had a doorbell?

  “What are you talking about, Mom? Of course there is a doorbell! There’s always been a doorbell at our house.”

  “At our old house, you mean?” she asked.

  My heart sank.

  “What do you mean, old house?”

  “I mean, the house we lived in when you were growing up. It had a doorbell. Our new house doesn’t.”

  “Your new house?” I gasped. “You moved?”

  “Well, yeah, two years ago.”

  “Two years ago? And you never bothered to tell me this?”

  “I guess not,” she said nonchalantly. “I don’t know why we would. It’s not as though you ever come to visit us.”

  “Uh, how about the fact that I’m your son? And I haven’t even known where you’ve been living?”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t think it mattered much. I still am not sure why you’re so upset over this.”

  I tried to take a deep breath in. This was all a reminder of why we had a falling out in the first place. God, she could be so clueless and so selfish. How did neither of them think to contact me about moving houses?

  I was their son, for crying out loud! This was how it’d always been, though. I always felt like an unimportant third wheel in my own household.

  But I wasn’t going to get mad. This was probably still salvageable. I could just get a cab over to their new house and surprise them that way. I didn’t think she even suspected yet that I came home for the holiday.

  “So what street are you living on now?” I asked.

  “The street?” she said, confused.

  “Yeah, what street are you at?”

  “Well, Daniel, I don’t think you’re going to recognize the street name or anything.”

  I laughed. “Mom, I know it’s been a few years, but I grew up here. I still remember every street, trust me.”

  “You didn’t grow up here. You grew up in Greenton.”

  “Yes, I… Wait! Are you saying you moved out of Greenton?”

  “Well, yeah, we moved out of the state.”

  “Out of the state?” I nearly shouted.

  Oh my God, this was so much worse than I thought. I was pissed when I thought they had just moved houses without me. But they had moved out of the God damn state?

  “You know we used to always talk about moving down to Florida.” She said casually.

  “Florida? No, you never mentioned Florida to me in my entire life! I… I cannot fucking believe this.”

  “You can’t possibly be mad about this!” she said, beginning to get defensive. “You rarely ever call us! It’s not as if you’ve been a big part of our lives or anything.”

  “Big part of your lives? Mom, I’m your fucking son. Your only son. I should matter enough that you can tell me when you move out of the fucking state.”

  “Don’t use that language with me! You have no right to be mad. Besides, now you know, so no harm done.”

  “Uh, yes, harm done, Mom! I’m in Greenton!”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I was going to surprise you guys and come down for Thanksgiving. I’m in Greenton, in front of my childhood home, as we speak.”

  “Well, that is pretty unfortunate,” she said, as if I’d just told her I forgot to grab milk at the grocery store.

  “Yeah! A little unfortunate! What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

  “I don’t know, Daniel. You could have called. We would have told you we moved out of Greenton.”

  “Right, I could have booked a flight to Florida instead,” I said in an exasperated tone.

  “Well, no, probably not. We live in a small condo. It’s no place for visitors, anyway.”

  “Wait…” I began slowly. “You’re not saying what
I think you’re saying, right?”

  “This is why you need to call, Daniel.”

  “So you’re saying even if I had asked, you wouldn’t let me visit you on Thanksgiving?”

  She gave an annoyed groan. “We just don’t have the room, Daniel. It’s nothing personal.”

  I had to literally laugh at that. “No, you’re right, it is nothing personal. That’s kind of the issue, right? I’m not a personal member of this family. We don’t have a personal relationship and we never have.”

  “Well whose fault is that?” she snapped. “You never wanted to visit before. You never tried to call. You’re not innocent in this!”

  “You are my mother!” I argued. “You two are my parents. You were supposed to make me feel loved and cared for and all of that nurturing shit. Instead, you guys pushed me away as far as you possibly could. You kept your distance until I was eighteen and then you couldn’t have been happier to have me out of your life, right?”

  She sighed. “Look, Daniel, I must go. I’m baking a few pies for tomorrow and—”

  “Oh, sorry Mom, am I ruining your Thanksgiving weekend with all my issues?’

  “Frankly, Daniel, you are kind of putting a damper on the day. I’d like to enjoy my Thanksgiving.”

  I nearly threw my phone at the concrete.

  “Really, Mom, do you? Do you want to enjoy your Thanksgiving? Because so do I! But now I’m stranded in Greenton with no place to go and no family to see!”

  “That’s not my fault, Daniel! You should have called! And you’re fully capable of getting a flight out of Greenton.”

  “Great, so you know I’ll just spend tonight in a hotel and spend my Thanksgiving waiting for a damn flight!”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to find one fairly easily. Nobody flies on Thanksgiving day.”

  I was seeing red. “That’s not the fucking point, Mom! The point is you don’t even bother to tell your only son that you have moved out of fucking town and now I can’t even see you. But, oh, wait, even if you had told me that you moved I wouldn’t be able to see you because you don’t give enough of a flying fuck about me to let me stay in your damned condo!”