day for Boeing, as a Production Manager. Always on time. Sometimes he’d even worked overtime, especially around Christmas when it was time to buy them all gifts. Santino Rossellini was a stand-up guy. A good guy. He would bury his hurt in a bottle and go to sleep loaded to the hilt, never bothering a soul. Yet, he’d taken care of his kids. He’d never beat his now ex-wife. He’d given her his check every week. Yet, he’d never brought himself to accept some of mom’s quirks, even after twenty years of marriage. He’d pick at her, belittle her. Her idiosyncrasies bothered him. Mom had gone from being a devoted Catholic with an open mind and gentle soul to an agnostic, leery of anyone claiming to have all the answers. This change had torn their household apart.
Nixon suspected Mom had always felt that way but had never had the courage to admit this until she was out of her parents’ home. Still, their issue wasn’t actually about religion but the fact they simply didn’t like each other anymore. Not even a little bit. It seemed that everything his father had loved about the woman when they’d first married, he hated after they began having children. Reality had set in.
Alice wasn’t meek and shy, like he’d thought. She was boisterous and full of ideas. Mom was into things like cutting-edge science and reading about endangered birds, strange and rare diseases, and figuring out the latest trends in Chicago real estate. She was book-smart, too, yet passed up pursuing a Master’s Degree in Engineering to be a full-time mom to four children she’d borne back to back. She was a tall, attractive, witty woman. A bit of a contradiction, too, since she also liked to curse and talk about crazy celebrity scandals. She’d often be seen holding a cigarette in one hand and a glass of apple cider in the other, discussing her extensive memorabilia of all things Jane Fonda. But to him, Mom was simply beautiful. Her imperfections and unwillingness to not question everything made her even lovelier.
Being the eldest of his siblings, Nixon recalled things the others did not. In fact, he remembered his parents being extremely happy for a long ass time, and then, one day, something broke. Hard. Like fragmented pieces of a glacier drifting apart along the ocean. Truth be told, they’d never been compatible. They were just trying to be who they thought the other person wanted, year after year after year.
And that scared the shit out of him. How could two people live that way? How could they stand it? Who in the fuck were they trying to impress? Once they finally admitted defeat, they both seemed happier… until recently. Mom appeared to recognize that she was aging, and this didn’t sit well with her. Dad had become less reliable. Maria accused him of falling into a depression since he’d retired and the rumor mill never stopped churning, spitting out that their stepmother, twelve years his junior with a stellar boob job and liposuction, was knockin’ boots with someone else at the company. AT&T certainly made booty calls.
“Nixon! You fuckin’ son of a bitch!”
Nixon blinked and slammed on his brakes. He’d been daydreaming, floating away, images of his childhood dancing about in his head like blowing Autumn leaves.
“What? What?!”
“I thought you were dead! I heard cars honkin’ and I was calling your name and got no response! Over there asphyxiating yourself or something? Or are you blacking out again?!” Nixon raked a hand through his hair and focused back on the road.
“Sorry, uh, I was just thinking is all. I never had problems with blacking out though, Dad.”
“I meant to say sleepwalkin’. You used to sleepwalk sometimes, remember? It was scary as hell. Imagine being sound asleep in bed and seein’ this tall sixteen-year-old punk holdin’ a baseball bat by our fuckin’ bed, looking at us like he had no clue who in the hell we were. Your mother practically jumped outta her skin. You were just standin’ there like some statue.”
Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that.
“Sleepwalking, huh? Yeah, I remember now. I’d done that a few times. I never remember what led up to it, though. Maybe it was a way for me to get a free vacation, if only in my mind.”
“I’m getting on a plane. Comin’ to Chicago!”
“You say it like it’s a threat. Bring your ass down here then. We’d love to see you.”