FATHER'S DAY - NOVEL - EPISODE ONE

Hey Blogsphere Folks: Father's Day - the novel - is the source material for the feature film being produced by my production company. Hope you enjoy reading Earl's story.
...And please check out the exciting trailer - starring the amazing John Billlingsley (Star Trek, 2012, Hawaii Five-O) for the film HERE

FATHER’S DAY

Written by: James M. Russell

Copyright 2015© James M. Russell

CHAPTER 1:

Earl Timmins sat in the darkened room lit only by the flickering light from an ancient movie projector. His middle-aged body nestled comfortably into a thickly padded easy chair that, over the years, had grown to conform to his shifting angles and bulges.

On one wall of the room was a hand-made bookcase, its shelves choked with the memorabilia that a family accumulates in a lifetime of living and loving.

Earl heard his voice call out from the depths of a Super 8 sound track.

“Ian, hold the bag open. Here come the leaves.”

Father and son laughed. Earl, with the gusto of a loving father, and Ian, with the exhausting effervescence of a six-year-old.

“Daddy! you missed!”

Earl smiled, sending lines of joy through his soft, round face. He watched the movie with rapt attention while reciting every word of the soundtrack. In several places, he whispered the words even before he or Ian spoke them.

CHAPTER 2: 

Wanda Timmins glided into the room wearing a paisley house dress that contrasted sharply with her faded pink slippers, whose once vibrant color had surrendered to the ravages of detergent and warm water and now merely whispered their former annoying hue. At fifty-five, she was a year younger, and more than a foot shorter than Earl, but nearly equaled him in girth. The gaudy lunch tray she carried was the flimsy sort, easily purchased at Wal-Mart for a song. Its red border was chipped and faded, its white stripes, gray with age. She set the tray in front of Earl and waited impatiently. Wanda had never been a good-looking woman, her cheekbones were too flat, her forehead was too high, and her eyes were set far into her head, like those of an owl. But Wanda had a lovely smile. And when she glanced at the tattered projection screen that smile swept across her face and lingered several seconds before being pushed aside by a look of dogged determination.

 “Earl, the doctor said you have to eat a healthy breakfast – this morning and every morning!” she said after snatching up the spoon and thrusting it into his hand.

And although Earl remained in the moment of cinematic illusion, he managed a reply in the hopes of placating his wife, “Thanks, Babes.”

After thirty-seven years of marriage, Wanda knew not to nag. She also knew that the odds of Earl having touched his breakfast by the time she returned in ten minutes¬¬ -- her first scheduled follow- up -- were fifty-fifty. To her knowledge, her husband had never gotten excited about food in his life, although he did love Wine Gums.

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Wanda met Earl at Mellow’s Candy and Confectionary Boutique, located on the southwest corner of Elm and Torrance. They tore it down years ago, but when she closed her eyes, she could see the place just as clear as day. Mr. Mellow was a rotund man who the kids used to call Humpty Dumpy, and although Wanda always thought that was mean, to be honest, he did kind of look like Humpty; he even wore a bow tie.

The Sunday Earl and Wanda met; Mr. Mellow was wearing the blue, shiny tie with the green seahorses that seemed to move if you stared at the tie too long. Earl was eighteen, Wanda, a year younger. Both were in their senior year at Torrance High School.

It was Wanda who spotted Earl. He was too busy staring in wonder at Mr. Mellow’s brand new, shiny chrome, motorized toffee-pulling machine.

“You talk to him first,” her friend Catherine said while struggling to remain calm. But Wanda was aware that Catherine was fed up with her current boyfriend and actively shopping for a suitable replacement and, therefore, had no intention of acting as her friend’s romance broker.

“Why me?”

“I'm shy.”

“Since when?”

“Wa!” Catherine said only because she knew Wanda hated that nickname. “You owe me.”

 It had been more than six months since Catherine had done Wanda the questionable favor of introducing her to Simon Winchester, a good-looking guy in their botany class. Simon had it all: great smile, sharp dresser, his own car, and, Wanda later discovered, a rich fiancée at the University of Boston. Wanda was sure that Catherine had known about the fiancée, but she pretended she didn't. Nevertheless, technically, Wanda did owe her, a debt that Catherine reminded her of at least once a day.

“All right,” Wanda sighed, “but this makes us even.”

Earl's eyes were so fixed on the belts and gears that gave a dizzy, dancing life to the metal arms that pulled and twisted the gooey, white toffee that he didn’t even notice Wanda approach him. In fact, he didn't even notice her standing there, not more than two feet away, until Wanda finally said, “It’s powered by a two amp motor with a five-to-one gear ratio.” It wasn’t the best pick-up line, but it was all that she could think of at the time. Wanda had no idea what an amp or gear ratio was, she was just repeating something she had overheard Mr. Mellow telling a customer a few days ago.

Earl turned toward Wanda and replied with a sparkle in his eye, “No kidding?” And that was that. Earl and Wanda dated for nearly a year before being married, on an overcast June day, at the First Baptist Church. All their friends attended, all except Catherine, who after that afternoon in the candy store, never spoke to Wanda again.

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Earl stared at his breakfast tray with indifference then suddenly smiled with a radiance that lit up his face brighter than the flickering reflecting off the movie screen.

“Babes, you remember when Ian helped Mrs. Foster refinish that old dresser of hers? How much did she give him? Twenty-five bucks?”

“Yes,” she said softly at she too stared at the screen.

Earl turned toward Wanda and immediately recognized the same sparkle he fell in love with on that Sunday afternoon in Mr. Mellow’s candy store.

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Two weeks before Earl Timmins formally met Wanda Epson, Earl had made the mistake of giving Wanda more than a passing glance at lunchtime. It was a typical stuffy May day and Wanda, that same sparkle in her eye, was playing softball with a bunch of friends near the north end of the barren, outdoor enclosure behind Torrance High School. Harvey Simmons, who everybody called ‘Cinnamon,' caught Earl looking at Wanda. And, loudmouth that he was, he told Jerry Lamport, who told Sammy Pape, and then the news just took off, racing across the sun-baked asphalt playground faster than a summer lightning bolt.

Wanda pretended not to care when the news finally reached her ten or so minutes later.

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“An' remember he told her that he couldn't accept it because she was our neighbor and neighbors helped each other out? You think she still has that ole dresser Babes?”

“I don't know Earl, I really don’t.”

“Jesus, I was proud of him. You know. When he told her that.”

“Me too. Remember? I made him a pie.”

Earl and Wanda fell silent, both lost in the moving images before them. It was Wanda who first returned to earth.

“Earl! Eat your breakfast!”

Earl never removed his eyes from the screen as he reached down and grasped the chrome spoon, plunged it into the Cream of Wheat, retrieved a half spoonful, then swallowed it joylessly. “Excellent porridge, thanks, Babes. Call me at eight. Will ya? I wanna vacuum out the car before we go pick up Ian.”

Wanda pointed toward Earl's tray,

“The toast too. It’s seven grain, just like Dr. Wong said.”

Then she turned, walked to the door and paused. Earl, feeling her eyes on him, ladled another spoonful of the beige-colored cereal into this mouth and swallowed. Satisfied, for now, Wanda turned and exited as silently as she entered and although neither Earl nor anyone else living watched her journey, there was one spectator, a wooden cuckoo.

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The cuckoo clock, made of pine but stained to look like mahogany, hung on the southwest wall of the Timmins’s foyer. The clock was a wedding present, and it worked fine for the first nine years or so, announcing the arrival of each hour with sudden cheeriness and keeping pretty good time. Neither Earl nor Wanda could remember when it stopped working, but it must have been around the time that Ian was born. One day, soon after that, Earl glanced at the clock and noticed that the cuckoo stood immobile.

For years, the wooden bird had announced the hour with a pleasant ‘cuckoo’, pausing briefly in its arched doorway before retreating smoothly into the clock’s innards. Alas, cuckoo hadn’t been home since a miscommunication between its gears and pulleys left her stranded. But her immobility had an upside, from her lofty perch, the cuckoo had an uninterrupted view of the foyer, and, therefore, the comings and goings of the Timmins family.

The cuckoo had watched Ian grow up and Earl and Wanda grow old.

As Wanda breezed past the cuckoo clock, she made a mental note to ask Earl to take it to the shop to be fixed, one of many similar requests she made over the years that for some reason or the other, he had never gotten around to.

Earl waited until he heard Wanda enter the kitchen, then quietly set his spoon beside the bowl and turned his attention to the movie screen.

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Earl and his son Ian, a skinny three-year-old with a whack of dark brown hair topping his denim-clad frame, are both grasping the varnished handle of a gleaming lawnmower. Ian is tucked in below his father as they push the mower. Green grass cuttings stream from the whirling blades. Earl glances mischievously at the camera then releases the handle, shifting the entire load to Ian. The lawnmower coasts to a stop, but Ian continues pushing, his feet pawing at the grass as if he were on a treadmill. On the screen, Earl’s laughter ends with a badly executed film splice.

Now Wanda, wearing the same paisley housedress, only it’s new in the film, stands at the kitchen sink with Ian, who is a year older. Ian hands a freshly washed dinner plate to his mother. In mid-handoff, both turn toward the camera and smile. Ian dips his hand into the soapy pool and flicks some water onto his mother. She recoils, then smiles mischievously and responds in kind.

Earl laughs, off-screen, just before the soundtrack pops.

In the next scene, Ian is now five years old. Perched atop his head is his father’s yellow hardhat. Both Ian and Earl sit on a pile of freshly milled two-by-fours. Behind them is a sun-bleached panorama of partially completed, two-storey homes. Father and son have their arms around each other as they mug for the photographer.

“Sing something.” Wanda urges from behind the camera.

Earl reaches into his battered, gray metal toolbox, hands Ian one of his hammers then grabs a crosscut saw and thrusts it into the air.

Earl starts them rocking side to side and then they both burst out singing, “Hi Ho, Hi Ho.”

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Earl was shocked by the sound, not because it was loud or alarming but because it was so novel. The Timmins’s front door bell hardly ever rang. Not that there was a problem with the circuitry, Earl being almost as adept with electronics as he was with wood. No, the Timmins’s door rang infrequently because, well, because nobody rang it, except the PG&E man to read the meter, or the Postie when she had an exceptionally large bundle of mail, typically bills and advertisements, that wouldn’t fit through the door slot.

It’s been years since any of the neighbors wanted to borrow a rake or hammer, and just as long since friends visited.

The Baxters moved to San Diego.

Beth and John Lampton, both high school teachers, took early retirement and became, in their words, modern-day vagabonds, going from one cruise to another, one buffet to another, one exotic destination to another.

Earl missed the company of Julie and Ken Cameron most. They used to come over nearly every weekend to play cards, then, without a word of warning, they just stopped. Earl called a couple times, Wanda too, and left messages on their machine, neither Julie nor Ken returned their calls. A first Earl was worried that something terrible had happened. Car crash or terminal disease but about six months after Julie and Ken ceased communication, Earl saw both of them, happy and healthy, sitting at one of the tables outside the Coffee and Company at Pico and Washington.

 Wanda insisted that it must have been something she or Earl said to the couple that got them upset, but Earl wasn’t so sure. He and Ken had known each other for years. Friends don’t just up and stop being friends without saying why.

He knew that Julie and Ian weren’t close. Earl even got the feeling that she would avoid being around him whenever possible, but that was just a feeling. After all, Ken and Julie had two boys and a girl of their own so there was no reason for either of them to be uncomfortable around kids.

The bell had ringed once again before Wanda answered the door.

Earl recognized the voice immediately.

“Morning Mrs. Timmins.”

“Morning, Leonus. No. Ian’s not home yet. We’re picking him up this afternoon. Aren’t you supposed to be in school?

“Teacher education day. Guess I’ll come back after dinner.”

“Tomorrow would be better."

“OK. Tomorrow then. Bye, Mrs. Timmins.”

“Bye. Leonus.”

Wanda re-entered the family room at a leisurely pace.

Earl spoke without taking his eyes from the screen. “Don’t you think Leonus kind of resembles Ian when he was that age?”

“I guess. A little. Seems like our Ian was only twelve years old for about three or four months.”

“Kids certainly do seem to grow up fast these days.”

“Leonus is a good kid.”

“He is, Babes.”

“And he sure loves Ian.”

“Lots to love. Now finish that toast Earl Timmins, before it turns to ice!”

Earl picked up his last slice, took a small bite and was about to take another when the film soundtrack popped and a flash of white light on the screen signaled the beginning of the footage they shot at the Hodges cabin when Ian was nine.

A smiling Earl, Wanda, and Ian are standing in the dead centre of the movie screen. Before them is a roaring campfire, its bright orange flames licking toward the black sky. Behind the happy threesome is a one-storey, rustic cabin, its front partially obscured by the large shadows cast by the Timmins family. Above the fire-engine-red cabin door is a brightly varnished sign made from a tree section, the rough bark still attached. The cursive letters, flowing gently through the wood face, read, Hodges Cabin.

Earl notices that Ian has begun staring at the campfire. Placing his right hand atop his son’s head, Earl gently turns Ian’s head so that he is again looking at the camera lens. But the whirling Kodak cannot compete with the magnetic lure of the flame and Ian’s eyes drift back into the depths of the crackling fire.

Slowly at first, then ever more quickly, the whole image begins to tilt as one leg of the tripod sinks into the soft ground. Earl runs to catch the camera, his two arms stretched out, his fingers splayed.

The soundtrack pops and the projector lens blinks once again.

Ian is now eleven. Still thin and gangly, his hair is much shorter, but it is not the extreme cut that marks the young man; it is the severity in his eyes as he walks, ‘gunslinger’ style down the driveway of their home.

    From somewhere outside the camera’s field of view, Earl laughs then shouts, “Clint Eastwood!”

    Ian stops, retraces his steps, then begins again, this time, rocking back and forth and twirling an imaginary cane.

    “Charlie Chaplin! ” Earl shouts through his laughter and from somewhere outside the camera’s eye he begins to applaud as Ian, proud of his performance, walks the rest of the distance to the camera with a cocky stride entirely his own.

CHAPTER 3: 

The electronically controlled lock had issued a ‘thunk’ before the heavy metal door began to swing open at a sinister pace. Ian, walking with the same cocky stride, stepped through the massive frame while sandwiched between two thick-necked guards.

Ian was no longer that fresh-faced kid in the movies for now his chin and upper lip bore patches of black stubble.

His once closely cropped hair hung in greasy strands down to his shoulders.

His muscles rippled under the tapestry of monochrome tattoos that covered his arms and crept up his neck.

His innocence, once so bright and shiny, had been vanquished by a darkness that sucked up his life-light like a black hole. 

 Ian was dressed in bright orange prison overalls while his jailers, a humorless pair of accidental civil servants, were clad in impeccable khaki uniforms with razor-sharp creases.

Correctional Officer Henry Dane glanced back at Ian as they walked down the institutional grey corridor. “Big fuckin' day... eh, Timmins?”

Ian and Officer Dane engaged in an impromptu staring contest until the Officer was forced to avert his gaze and open yet another door, this time with a swipe of the ID card dangling from his neck. Dane waited for the ‘thunk,’ then pushed open the door and stepped into yet another hallway, this one wider and higher, and painted a pleasant baby blue. Ian had already shifted his weight and lifted his right foot to step forward when Correctional Officer Frederick Worthington gave Ian a hard shove from behind. Ian smiled. And although it was the same smile he had in those grainy home movies, his eyes had retained none of their former sparkle. Instead, each eye more resembled the entrance to some Third World coal mine.

Dark and dank and filled with death and human desperation.

They now stood in a joyless twelve-by-twelve room the floor and walls of which were bare but for a single locker room bench and a half-dozen identical clothes hooks, which, judging by the sloppy nature of their installation, were likely mounted on the wall by a trained chimpanzee.

A cheap, business-blue suit hung from one of those hooks, a white, short sleeve shirt, and a paisley tie from another. Positioned, as per regulations, at the precise end of one of the locker room benches was a pair of new, black oxford shoes, a product of the prison’s leather shop.

“OK Timmins, you know the drill,” Officer Dane said in an emotionless tone as he pulled a pair of white rubber gloves from his pocket.

Ian kicked off his prison-issued athletic shoes then unzipped the front of his overalls. He slipped his arms out of the sleeves and let his overalls fall to the ground.

Worthington smiled when he noticed the purple and green, dinner plate sized bruise on Ian's back.

"Looks like somebody gave you a little love tap as a going away present."

Worthington then pulled out his regulation baton and slapped it once in the palm of his fleshy hand.

"Like me to give you another on the other side? Then you'd have a matching pair.”

"Wish I could say the same thing about your mother’s tits.”

Officer Worthington charged toward Ian, and if it weren’t for that pending internal investigation hanging over his head, Officer Dane probably would have let his partner work over that asshole, Timmins. But on that day Officer Dane was all business.

"Step, lift and open!"

Ian stepped out of his pant legs and lifted his arms ninety degrees to his side and parallel to the ground, his mouth wide open. Dane pulled on his gloves with the skill of a surgeon then lifted his black Magnalite from its frayed nylon belt holster and shone it into Ian's mouth, taking care to check the sides and especially the roof – frequently a prisoner's favorite place for hiding drugs and razors.  

“Lift!” Dane commanded and Ian immediately raised his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

“Close!” He said then reached out and felt under Ian's arm, before checking under his penis and scrotum. After looking between Ian’s toes, Officer Dane stood and took half a step backward.

“OK, Timmins. Spread 'em.”

Ian turned, spread his legs, bent over, and pulled his buttocks open with his hands.

“Not nearly as tight as it was when you first arrived, Timmins; guess you've taken a few, eh?”

Ian did not reply. Why should he? Nor did he flinch as Officer Dane abruptly shoved his index finger up Ian’s rectum, moved it left then right then withdrew it, ripping off his soiled gloves and tossing them into the red trash bin marked ‘Bio-hazardous Waste’.

As per regulations, Officer Worthington then jerked a clear plastic garbage bag from his back pocket, opened it wide, held it at arm’s length, and waited. Ian gathered up his prison overalls and shoes and tossed them into the bag then reached back in and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. Danes snatched the cigarettes from Ian’s hand, inspected the pack, then handed it back to him.

“An officer will come to get you when it's time. Good luck Timmins.”

Officer Dane waited a moment for a response then jerked open the door and marched out into the hallway.

Officer Worthington followed then said over his shoulder as he passed through the open doorway. “Timmins, do us all a favour sport, stay outta trouble for at least a month or so; our fire extinguishers need a fuckin' rest.”

Ian smirked then lit a cigarette and began dressing.

CHAPTER 4: 

Earl was standing by the passenger door, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt, when he noticed an oval shaped watermark on the chrome door molding of their royal blue and midnight black 1985 Mercury Grand Marquis. Earl rubbed the spot twice, once with a corner of his chamois and again with that special lamb’s wool mitt he bought at Manny and Moe’s auto supply two years ago. Earl wondered how, on such a bright, cloudless day he could have missed the blemish then remembered that he was getting old and resigned himself to the reality that his eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.

In a moment, Earl allowed his gloved hand to fall limp to his side and stepped back to admire his work.

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Earl had purchased the lamb’s wool mitt during a service appointment.

There was nothing wrong mechanically with ‘Ole Grand’, as he called the vintage Mercury; it was just the six-month oil change, a routine that he and Ole Grand had stuck to since day one pretty well.

Earl had been sitting in the service area waiting room for less than fifteen minutes before he grew tired of watching the silly game show blasting from the small television hanging from the ceiling in the far corner of the cramped room. So, Earl lifted his sore butt out of his chair, walked past the three other seated customers, and stopped in front of the magazine rack. Earl looked over the selection and quickly realized that he had read all but two of them on previous visits, a year old edition of Golfing Today, which didn't interest him in the least, and a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated, which he noticed was only two months old but in worse shape than the National Geographic from three years ago. Still, the Sports Illustrated was the swimsuit edition so that might have explained it.

Earl jerked the Sports Illustrated from the rack and sat back down in his still-warm chair. He must have flipped through the entire magazine in less than a minute, pausing only once or twice to wonder whether there were really women that looked that good or if it was just computer trickery. When he reached the last page, Earl set the swimsuit edition on the empty chair next to him, glanced at the game show, which had grow even sillier, then stood again and headed straight toward the door that led to the high ceiling store with its rows of rows of everything auto.

He was strolling down the ‘washing and wax’ aisle when his aging eyes were assaulted by a bright orange cardboard sign in the shape of a star. The neat letters formed the words ‘Special Purchase’. And at $4.99 it seemed like a reasonable price for something made from wool that came all the way from Australia, or possibly New Zealand.

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Earl loosened his tie just a fraction then gave his collar one last tug. A quick twist of his head confirmed that he had at least removed one major annoyance, now if he could only stop his tweed jacket from itching, his khaki pants from digging into his crotch, and the stiff, brown Oxfords, that Wanda bought him especially for this occasion, from grinding the skin off his big toe.

Earl had just begun looking for other watermarks that he might have missed on Ole Grand when Wanda opened the front door and stepped out into the morning sun. Jesus, she looked good, he thought to himself. Earl was surprised that his wife had decided to wear that red floral dress she bought on sale last fall at Sears and Roebucks. She had rushed home that afternoon all excited, then spent the next hour in the bedroom with the door closed. Finally, she called Earl upstairs.

“Well, how does it look?”

“Good.”

“Just good? Not fabulous or terrific or sexy?”

“Isn't good, good enough?” Earl said, but the look on her face told him that it wasn't. Wanda said that she was going to return it and he thought she had, but there she was, wearing it today.

“You look fabulous Babes,” Earl gushed and Wanda broke into laughter. “What'd I say?”

“Who always says, 'Never use a ten dollar word when a fifty cent word will do?’” she replied, and they both smiled.

Earl opened the car door for Wanda and she sat lightly into the passenger seat, trying not to wrinkle her dress.

“Thank you kind sir.”

“You're welcome young lady.”

Earl hurried around to the driver's side, sat then reached up to the visor and pressed the garage door remote. The motor groaned in pain before the door lurched down, plunging the garage into darkness. When the door traveled about midway to the ground Earl noticed Ian's roller skates hanging from a nail on the back wall.

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Santa Claus gave Ian those skates for Christmas. They were, in fact, number one on their son’s wish list. Ian tried skating once, fell, then stood, and fell again. That was the last time he wore the skates. Neither Earl nor Wanda was surprised; Ian was never the athletic type. 

Less than two weeks into the new year, Earl spotted Ian skates in the next-door neighbor’s trashcan.  He considered leaving them there, but it seemed such a waste of a pair of hardly used skates, so he fished them out and hung them from a nail in the garage. It is from that metal projection that they have dangled for more than ten years.

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The garage door slammed to the ground, then fell silent.

Earl inserted the key carefully into the ignition, started up Ole Grand then turned to Wanda and smiled.

“Let's go get our son.”

And Wanda beamed.

“Yes, let's just do that.”

CHAPTER 5: 

Moslow State Prison is California’s second oldest inmate facility. The location was selected because of an unlimited amount of native stone, which was used to build the prison. In addition, the American River offered both an ample supply of water and formed a natural boundary. Moslow received its first inmates, forty-four sorry souls transferred from San Quentin, on July 26, 1880. At last count, Moslow Prison housed 3,579 prisoners. The inmate programs include auto body, auto mechanics, electronics, graphic arts, janitorial, landscape gardening, masonry, mill and cabinet, office services, printing, and shoe repair. The administration is especially proud of their license plate factory.

Johnny Cash once sang his now famous “Moslow Prison Blues” song there in a live concert. Admission was free, the audience was not.

It was nearly four in the afternoon when Ole Grand pulled off Moslow Boulevard onto Natoma Street for the last leg of Earl and Wanda’s journey. It had been a grueling seven-hour drive from Torrance. Up Highway 5 to Sacramento, then east on 50 another twenty-five miles to the prison.

Earl pulled Ole Grand to a stop close but not too close to the stodgy gatehouse. Corrections Support Officer Cyrus Henning, a middle-aged man exhausted by a dumb job and an ex-wife from hell, glanced up from his paper work then returned to line thirty-five of his income tax statement.

Earl cleared his throat, hoping to get Cyrus’s attention but couldn’t compete with Cyrus's need to reduce his taxable income by at least another eight thousand dollars. After an acceptable period of disregard, Cyrus finally set down his well-chewed pencil, snatched up his clipboard and wandered out through the open door of his concrete-block gatehouse.

Earl renewed his smile.

“Good afternoon. My name is Earl Timmins, this is my wife, Wanda. We’ve been here before, to visit, but we usually go to the other entrance, never been to this side before. Anyway, we're here to pick up our son Ian. Ian Timmins. That’s Ian with an I, Timmins, double m.”

“Just a minute,” Cyrus mumbled before retracing his steps back into the gatehouse where he began flipping through the pages of an orange, three-ring binder sitting with a half dozen others on a short wooden shelf.

Earl waited and watched until he could bear it no longer.

“Ian's been here for nearly four years. You'd think they'd know who he is by now,” he muttered.

“Don’t get your pressure up Earl, they'll find his name. I think it's just...”

Cyrus slammed his orange binder shut, shoved it back on the shelf, then pressed the wall-mounted button that raised the gate marked Stop and Report in fluorescent orange letters.

“First parking lot on the left. You're going to that white building straight ahead. Enter through the door marked Reception.”

“Thanks,” Earl muttered before he slipped Ole Grand into gear and gave her gas. Their spotless chariot lurched over the metal spike trap and then rumbled into the prison parking lot.

CHAPTER 6:

Perhaps Earl and Wanda were expecting something that resembled a doctor's waiting room or hotel lobby, but whatever they had envisioned did not prepare them for the chaos and noise that slapped them in the face when they walked into the reception area.

Earl stood stunned, not believing his eyes and ears, while Wanda took a more practical approach and began leading Earl through the maze of unruly children, grungy furniture, and litter to the far end of the room. There they sat on two vacant, padded chairs, sandwiched between a dozing black man who, judging by the various shades and hues of latex smears and specks that blanketed his skin and overalls, must have been a house painter. Beside him was a morbidly obese woman who, in spite of being close to mandatory retirement age, continued to dress like a twenty-year-old streetwalker.

The carpetless reception room had no windows, no potted plants, no TV, no play area for the children. The solid expanse of off-white walls was only broken by a single, weighty metal door located five feet from where Ian’s parents had found seating. 

Neither Earl nor Wanda spoke, not that they would have been able to carry on a conversation over the din of raised voices, tubercular coughing, and children's screams.

Earl continued to scan the room with disbelief while Wanda fixed her eyes straight ahead. A black woman, about Wanda's age, and sitting with a scholarly looking man dressed in a blue business suit, caught Wanda's eye and smiled pleasantly. Wanda was about to return the woman's smile but, instead, she jumped with fright when an unseen bureaucrat’s voice shot through the air.

“Mr. and Mrs. Timmins! Door number three!”

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John Fuller’s full title was Paroled Inmate Counselor, but the prisoners called them PICs for short, although the vulgar sometimes inserted an r as the second letter. John, and PICs like him, ensure that the soon-to-be-released inmates, their families, and loved ones fully understand the terms and conditions of the inmate’s parole contract. They used to call them ‘agreements’ but some social psychologist decided that the word ‘contract’ implied a greater level of commitment and therefore inmates were more likely to adhere to its requirements. That was three years ago and the stats had yet to support that theory. Fuller’s job was to go over each contract, word by word, line by line, sentence by sentence with his contractual partners or CPs – as the soon-to-be-released inmates were called. Then have them sign on the dotted line.

    He did the same with the inmate’s ‘support givers’ or SGs immediately previous to the CP’s release.

Of course, the job was stressful, but it had its perks. Nine to five, decent pay, no weekends or overtime and the prison was only a thirty-minute drive from the two-bedroom condo he and his wife had purchased on the outskirts of Sacramento.

Everyone of Moslow’s six full-time PICs had some coping mechanism. Sanderson bit his fingernails. Williams beat his wife. Adams, Browning, and Singleton took refuge in the bottle.

John was cursed by nightmares, typically involving his long dead mother. He used to have them every night but since he started having regular sessions with Dr. Wang, the nightmares were less frequent and less frightening.

“The mental manifestation of your mother represents your abhorrence of the crimes your contractual partners have committed. You must learn to focus on your partners as the individuals they are, not on the crime they committed,” Dr. Wang told John on more than one occasion.

“…on the individual, not their crime… on the individual, not their crime..”  John took to repeating aloud three times on his way to work, thrice at lunch, and at least once before bed.

The doctor was right of course, but that didn’t make coping any easier. But how could he? How could he get past the fact that the majority of the miscreants sitting on the other side of John’s desk had committed monstrous acts?

Murder, manslaughter, rape, child abuse, robbery with violence, and the like.

Individuals!

His clients were individuals only in name. Collectively they shared a depravity that turned John’s stomach.

“Focus on the individual!”

If John had his way, he would like to focus his rifle sights on each of those ‘individuals’ just before he put a hole through their foreheads.

But he couldn’t. His job was to read the words on the parole contract and collect the requisite signature. Nothing more, nothing less. And that he had done yesterday at 0800 when inmate #908CJ54 visited his office. And John Fuller resolved to exhibit that same detached professionalism during his ‘Engagement Interview’ with SGs Earl and Wanda Timmins, who had just stepped into his office.

As John often noticed with first-timers, the SGs had not only entered his office cautiously, but appeared bewildered, a state that John accepted as being a perfectly normal reaction for normal people who had just been subjected to the cesspool of humanity packed into that twenty by twenty room some of the other PICs often refer to as ‘the Cabinet of Caligari’ . 

But even as first-timers, these CPs were different. For one thing, he and she looked like stalwart individuals: clothes clean, not torn, Mr. Timmins in a jacket and tie -- rarely seen at Moslow. Mrs. Timmins wearing a tasteful summer dress, not garish in color or cut but gay and sunny.

It was because John felt a little sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Timmins that he attempted to allay their anxiety with a joke, an unprofessional frivolity that he rarely allowed himself.

“Come in. Come in. I don’t bite.”

Earl and Wanda smiled uneasily.

“Mr. and Mrs. Timmins?”

Earl recovered first, “Yes.”

“John Fuller, please have a seat.”

Earl and Wanda had just sat in two of his four straight back chairs when John pressed the button mounted on the underside of his desk and the Inmate Waiting Room door swung open. John watched as the couple’s faces lit up, seemingly with a combination of joy and relief, as Inmate #908CJ54 stepped into the room wearing his standard issue suit and shoes. John noted with satisfaction that at least the inmate had put on his tie, although it hung slack, his top button undone.

“Oh, Ian!”

Based on his years on the job, John had a pretty good idea how Inmate #908CJ54’s reply, although the inmate’s exaggerated emotionalism caught him by surprise.

“Mom! Oh, Mom! Dad!

“Ian baby!”

“Mom! Dad!”

“Son!”

The three Timmins family members formed a joyous knot held together by simultaneous hugs and kisses and an outpouring of love and affection. Any civilian would have been touched by such a display of seemingly genuine emotion, but John Fuller was a seasoned officer of the California Correctional Services. If he felt anything it was pity for the parents of Inmate #908CJ54 and perhaps a momentary surge of rage that grew from the fact that the parents of the man incinerated by #908CJ54 will never have a tearful reunion with their son, except perhaps in Heaven.

Watching the joyful anguish on the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Timmins, John tried to project himself into their minds but the best he could manage was empathy, not understanding. Thirty-eight year old John Fuller and his forty-one-year-old wife Marion have no children, mainly due to a combination of his low sperm count and her minor plumbing problems. Not that they have tried that hard since he took to sleeping alone in the second bedroom.

The nightmares and the resultant talking and shouting and thrashing about were keeping her awake.

It was probably for the best.

Having no kids meant that there was zero chance that any child of theirs would turn out like Inmate #908CJ54 or worse, end up as one of his victims.

 John waited patiently for the three Timmins members to disengage and sit in their respective chairs before opening the top flap of the green file folder and beginning the ‘inmate disengagement’ paperwork.

--------

His father was on his right. His mother on his left as Ian stepped through the automatic doors that finally led to freedom.  The exact moment that the low-lying afternoon sun hit his face Inmate #908CJ54 vowed that the California Department of Corrections would never get its hands on Ian Timmins again.

    He was correct.

CHAPTER 7:

Ian sat in the back seat of Ole Grand with the rear passenger window open and the wind blowing in his face as he took in his new surroundings. Earl drove, as always, at or slightly below the speed limit and, like Wanda, didn't really know what to say.

“Guess you're happy to get out of that place.”

“I most certainly am.” He replied in the most proper diction he could muster.

Just then Earl slowed Ole Grand to a stop, signaled a left turn with his arm and proceeded into the intersection.

“Turn signals broke or you just dryin’ your nails?”

Earl and Wanda laughed a bit too hard, Ian not at all.

“Probably just a fuse. Signals worked fine this morning,” Earl said.

“Jesus Dad, how come you’re still driving this heap?”

“Can't afford a new one. Besides Ole Grand's ‘family’.”

Ian slid to the passenger side of the back seat, directly behind his mother, and where his father couldn’t see him in the rear view mirror then whipped off his prison-issued neck tie and tossed it out the window while silently mimicking his father's words with disdain.

They had just turned onto the highway when Earl glanced to the side and noticed Wanda, a smile affixed to her face, staring, glassy-eyed, out the window. To be honest, he was a bit teary as well, must have been the dry, desert breeze.

----------

Service Associate Gina Theriault glanced at the time on the cash terminal; it was 7:10, four minutes and twenty-three seconds since she last checked. Gina didn't know why this shift seemed to be going so slowly. Slower than any of the other five to nine shifts she had worked since starting at the Burger Castle three months ago. Maybe it was the crush of year-end exams, or maybe it was because after three, no, four pay checks she still had to borrow money from her parents to make ends meet for her and her son.

Gina's headset beeped and she quickly positioned her hands over the terminal, ready to take the customer's order.

“Welcome to Burger Castle - which items would you like to order from our excellent menu.”

“Hello, Young Lady. We'd like three, no, make that four sky-high cheeseburgers, two with extra onions. Three small fries, two medium diet cokes and a chocolate milk shake.”

Gina entered the order with practiced dexterity, still listening even when her customer turned his head away from the speaker.

“That's it?” the customer asked someone in the car. Gina heard a muffled response then the customer turned and spoke directly into the speaker, “That's all thank you.”

“Your order comes to fourteen ninety-five. Please drive to the first window.”

Gina glanced at Production Associate Randy Macintosh to make sure he had started work on the customer's four burgers. With machine-like precision, she grabbed three small bags of fries with one hand, a number two takeout bag with the other, set the fries into one of the bags then positioned two medium cups on the pop dispenser, and punched the appropriate symbol on the touch pad. While the carbon dioxide laced fluid poured from the nozzle, Gina scooped two measured cups of shake mix into a third cup, filled it with two percent milk and three scoops of ice cream, then shoved the cup under the mixer. Right on schedule, Randy handed her the four completed burgers, bagged and ready to go as she turned, capped the Diet Cokes, and began filling the second. She was back at her window, her customer’s order in hand, in fifty-five seconds. Three and a half seconds over the Performance Perimeters for a Level Two Fulfillment but not bad for a Product Delivery Associate Class 4.

Gina didn’t usually pay much attention to the endless parade of humanity that drove past her takeout window. The old guy probably caught her eye because he kind of reminded Gina of her Uncle Sunny, but without glasses and with less hair. Gina couldn't see the woman sitting in the passenger seat but the kid sitting in the back was in plain sight and although her first impression was that he was kind of cute, the tattoos were a real turn off.

Gina leaned forward, activating the motion sensor that opened the Product Delivery Portal, then reached out with the burger bag in one hand, the drink tray in the other.

“Four sky-highs with cheese, three small fries, two diet cokes, and one chocolate shake,” she droned as she handed the order to the driver who passed the bag, then the drinks in turn to the woman sitting beside him. Gina withdrew into the stale air of her take-out station then watched as the tattooed guy reached into the bag and snatched out a burger. He barely took the time to peel back the foil before taking a bite so big that she doubted there was room in his mouth to chew. The old guy eased the car into gear like he was afraid he’d break the shift lever then drove off smoothly. Gina’s eyes had followed the car only briefly before her headset beeped, signaling the start of yet another ‘customer delivery event’.

 -------------

It was nearly ten o’clock when Ole Grand pulled into the driveway of 2451 Arlington Avenue. The street was quiet; it always was once the kids had gone to bed and the two city bus routes that cut through the neighborhood had both switched from rush hour to evening schedules.

The Timmins’s modest two-bedroom bungalow and the street it sat on is located in the geographic center of Torrance, California. Recently painted white with brown trim, the house dates back to the early 1900s when real estate developer Jared S. Torrance founded the community nestled in the southwest corner of Los Angeles County. Although it rested eighty-four feet above sea level, Torrance is sometimes referred to as the ‘South Bay’.

Incorporated in 1921, the South Bay quickly became home to secretaries and sailors, pilots and plumbers, carpenters and cooks. Today, the population numbers 133,000, the city streets are wider, the malls larger, but otherwise not much had changed. True, the original wood and plaster bungalows were starting to show their age but the same sons and daughters of those blue-collar pioneers who settled there in the early 1900s are still raising families, still working their jobs, still paying bills, still tending their gardens.

CHAPTER 8:

His second-floor bedroom was silent.

The air, still.

If Ian’s room was a person you could say, she was holding her breath.

A sickly yellow beam cast by the sodium-vapor street lamp was the only light penetrating the darkness. The rectangular pattern it cast, as it has since the city erected the new lights fifteen years ago, drapes down from Ian’s bed onto the cowhide-brown carpet.

The single bed, perched atop six stubby legs of wood, is covered with a badly faded sun and moon print bedspread that was likely designed for a child no older than ten.  The remaining furniture consists of a handmade, three-drawer dresser and a recently polished solid wood desk with matching chair and a floor to ceiling pole lamp with three articulating ‘heads’.

The room itself was approximately twelve feet by fifteen and contained not one speck of dirt, dust, or untidiness. Wanda had seen to that.

And, true to the promise she made to her son the first time they visited him at Moslow, she and Earl had kept the room just as Ian had left it - neater and cleaner – but never disturbing the six, wall mounted 8x10s of expensive cars; a framed, second place certificate from the YMCA summer camp baseball tournament; a rainbow colored box kite dangling from the ceiling, and two thumb-tacked posters: one of a scowling Al Pacino – in full Scarface persona and, on the opposite wall, a formal portrait of The King, who looked strangely perplexed.

It was, even to the trained eye, a typical teenager's room. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would tell a parent, psychologist, or homicide investigator that the boy who claimed this room as his own was anything but normal. Nothing that would warn them.

------------

The silence and motionlessness lingered for a few moments more before being suddenly pushed aside by the sound of three pairs of feet as they shuffled across the concrete floored porch.

The metal-on-metal sound of the Timmins’s front door being unlocked was different from those of Moslow. The lock that secured the front door of 2451 Arlington was, in comparison, slight, almost shy. A simple latch, on the simple door, of a simple home.

The fabric of Ian's kite, hanging over his bed, fluttered, ever so slightly, as the swinging front door ruffled the collective air.

Almost immediately, Ian announced, "Home again home again, jiggery jig," with a practiced sincerity that could have easily been interpreted as sincere.

 Earl and Wanda repeated in unison, “Jiggery jig.”

Ian’s gummy soles squeaked twice on the freshly waxed floor, Wanda’s shoes clacked just once and Earl’s hard rubber heels thumped twice before the foyer fell into a collective silence. 

“Everything will be OK baby. You're home now.” Wanda said from downstairs.

The staccato beat of Ian sprinting up the carpet-covered steps stopped suddenly when his black silhouette appeared in the open door. And there he remained, staring into the darkness as if afraid to turn on the light. As if afraid to reconcile reality with cellblock nostalgia.

It was his mother who flipped on his room light.

“See? Just like I said. Not a thing moved since you left..”

It wasn’t until she noticed the disapproving expression on her husband’s face as he completed his breathless climb that Wanda added, “Well, I did clean it up a little.”

Ian stripped off his suit jacket and flung it into a corner of the room, grazing a Jaguar hubcap propped against the wall.

Earl smiled.

“Son, you remember when we found that hubcap? You must have been five or six ye...?”

“Yeah.”

It was only when Ian took off his dress shirt that Earl and Wanda noticed the bruise on his back. The sight of the horrible thing turned Earl’s stomach and sucked the breath out of Wanda's lungs. She leaned against Earl and opened her mouth to speak but stopped when Earl gave her a gentle squeeze. Blinking to hold back the tears, he looked at Wanda and shook his head.

Ian let his shirt fall at his feet then pulled a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt from his dresser. Wanda recovered as soon as the bruise was covered. Ian glanced about then began searching through his clothes closet.

“Mom, have you seen... never mind.”

And then he pulled a black leather vest from his closet and slipped it on. The blue and black colored guitar, embroidered diagonally across the back of the vest looked a lot better since Wanda took the time to clip off a dozen or so stray threads. The matching leather cap, won in the same card game he won the jacket, was just where he had left it, on the hook behind his closet door.

“Well, you just get comfortable dear. I know it's late but I thought we could have dessert together. I made an apple pie - your favorite.”

Wanda waited for a response but Ian, now decked out in his civvies, was too busy admiring his image in the mirror.

A collective smile crept over Earl and Wanda's faces as they stared at their son. Their baby was home and they were convinced that now everything was going to be all right.

After a few moments, Earl gave Wanda’s hand a squeeze then led her down the hall toward the stairs.

Ian didn’t notice his parents leave. He was too busy admiring himself in the mirror. But not too busy to notice The King staring at him, so with one sweeping motion, Ian ripped the poster of The King off the wall and allowed it to drift, face down, to the floor.

Ian then turned back toward the mirror and smiled at his reflection.

----------

Wanda was in the kitchen, preparing to serve up the apple pie when Ian raced past the open door.

“Just going to say hi to Leonus.”

“Don’t be long. Desserts ready,” she barely managed to say before Ian slammed the front door closed behind him.

“Where’s Ian gone?”

“Across the street to the Derby’s.”

“Oh. OK.”

------------

Leonus was kicking Ian’s butt at Warlord. Not surprising, inmates didn’t have access to video games so over the past four years Ian had no opportunity to keep up his gaming skills. Dodging homemade knives and negotiating the intricacies of prison politics weren’t skills that were transferable to the world of evil Kros warlords or the Valiant Circle of Monos Knights that fought for domination of the planet Ta.

Ian and Leonus were sitting on the floor of his bedroom when Leonus’s mother Alice Derby walked in carrying a stack of freshly laundered clothes.

“Ian!”

“Hello, Mrs. Derby. Good to see you.”

“I didn’t know you were here.”

“I knocked on the back door and Leonus let me in. I know it’s kinda late. Hope you don’t mind. Leonus and I were just playi..”

“No, no, that’s fine. You just kind of startled me. When did you…? I mean I didn’t know you were getting... home.

“Got sprung today. Mom and Dad drove me home not more than an hour ago. By the way, I like what you done with your hair.”

“Thank you, Ian,” Alice managed to reply in what she hoped was a normal, or at least neutral tone.

“Time to get cleaned up for bed dear,” she said to her son in a bright tone.

“Ah. Mom!”

“You should always obey your mother and father Leo. They know what’s best,” Ian said with the authority of an ancient sage.

Alice’s heart ricocheted off the inside of her chest when Ian suddenly leaped to his feet then smiled that smile of his.

“I have to get going too. Well, good night Mrs. Derby. I can let myself out. See ya Leo. ”

Alice’s mind raced as she followed Ian at a cautious distance, watching him closely as the Timmins’s boy slinked down the stairs then moved silently through their kitchen, and out their back door.

It wasn’t until the door has shut behind him that she allowed her body to shiver.

Immediately she locked the back door, then checked that it was truly locked, then checked it again.

CHAPTER 9: 

The chrome-legged kitchen table, with its snow-white linoleum top and chrome ribbon edge, was, judging by the latest home decorating magazines, very retro and stylish. But, Earl and Wanda Timmins were unaware of the table’s fashionable status, then or thirty years ago when they got it as a wedding present. Aside from replacing the top once, after Wanda absentmindedly scorched it with a pot, the table had served them well and long ago attained the status of ‘one of the family’. It was at this table that the Timmins took their Thursday evening dessert. A very special dessert. The first one they had had together in more years than they cared to remember.

Earl and Wanda sat, where they always had, at opposite ends of the table with Ian sitting between them on the wall side. This seating arrangement originated when Ian was old enough to sit up. He was in a high chair back then, also a wedding present.

Sitting atop the gleaming table were three place settings perched on three of the six fiberboard placemats from the Old Masters Collection. Ian had Mona Lisa, Earl, the van Gogh landscape, and Wanda’s was a lovely fall painting by Tom Thomson, not really one of ‘the Masters’ she was told by the sales clerk at Sears and Roebuck, but that was the very reason the repackaged set of six had been marked down. Master or not, she liked Mr. Thomson's painting, entitled Jack Pine. For some reason, the stark landscape, punctuated by one lone tree, reminded her of Christmas, her favorite time of the year.

Ian, sitting hunched over his plate, as an animal would at feeding time, had nearly finished his pie while Earl and Wanda just sat there, their food untouched, alternating between smiling at each other and staring at their son. 

Ian spoke with a mouth full of pie.

“Soon as I get 'nough saved up I'm gonna get my own apartment, maybe out near the Marina.”

Wanda shot a quick glance at Earl who was busy separating his slice of pie into three sections: apple, crust, and syrup, only because the latter two he was forbidden to eat.

“Honey. Everything out there is very expensive. You're welcome to stay with us as long as you want.”

Earl added matter-of-factly, without taking his eyes off his task, “Son. We're here to help whatever and whichever way we can.”

“I can take care of myself.”

A silence hung in the air while Ian finished wolfing down the last bites of his pie and Earl completed the deconstruction of his desert.

Earl had a thought.

“Remember how much fun we used to have fishing, son? Think you'd like to go out Saturday morning? I’ve still got your old rod and reel.”

“That's a grand idea,” Wanda added.

Ian glanced up at his father then at his mother, then, using his fork, toyed with the crumbs in his plate.

“Sure Dad.”

Earl beamed, shoved a piece of piecrust into this mouth, then froze when he noticed Wanda's disapproving scowl.

“Well, it’s lights out for me,” Ian said then pushed back his chair and stood, “Thanks, Mom.”

Then he walked out, leaving his plate and the half-empty glass of milk on the table.

Wanda followed Ian out of the kitchen while Earl, still sitting at the table, waited until he was sure that she was gone then closed his eyes and chewed his mouthful of pie crust with blissful rebellion.

Earl then cleared the table and set the dishes in the sink.

---------

Wanda arrived at Ian’s door to find him lying face up, hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. Earl arrived moments later.

“Tomorrow's a big day. Told your parole officer… Oh, I booked time off next Friday morning to drive you for your first weekly session… anyway, I told him that I'd take you to work and introduce you to my boss. Name’s Hector Hernandez, but he prefers Nan. Anyway, Nan said he could use another laborer around the site for, you know, cleaning up and stuff. Pay's not much, but it's an honest living. Found you a dandy pair of steel-toed boots at Goodwill. Nearly new. Well, goodnight son. Good to have you home again.”

Ian answered while continuing to stare at nothing in particular on the ceiling.

“'Night Dad.”

“Goodnight Baby.”

“Goodnight Mom.”

Earl had already turned and was now making his way down the hallway when Wanda saw through Ian’s bedroom window the front door of the Derby home jerk open. Almost immediately, Alice hurried out, dragging a protesting Leonus down the walkway of their home to the driveway where their car sat idling, white cotton clouds of warm air shooting from the exhaust pipe.

Moving with less urgency, Carl, her husband, stepped through the front door soon after his wife. He was carrying two large suitcases, which he set into the trunk of his wife’s car.

Carl barely had time to kiss his wife goodbye through the driver’s side window before she began backing down the driveway toward the stre…

“Mom? You OK?”

Wanda shifted her gaze immediately, smiled broadly at Ian then shot a quick glance to the side to make sure that Earl was out of hearing range before struggling to compose what she now needed to say.

Wanda had practiced various versions of this speech a million times over the past four years. There was a short version, a medium version, and a long version, which she had pretty well ruled out as being, well, too long. She used to practice the speech in front of the mirror. That's how her friend Sarah Stewart honed her speeches to the Torrance High School Debating Society, which Wanda never belonged to, but it must have worked for Sarah because she was always winning some prize or another.

Over the past two years or so, Wanda practiced her speech to Ian in the morning after Earl had left for work and before she headed out to do her Meals on Wheels. She didn't practice every morning of course. Maybe once or twice a month at the beginning, then once every couple of months. Since they found out that Ian might be granted parole, she had been practicing just about every other day. But despite all her preparation, she really didn't know where or how to begin.

In fact, she had all but given up on her speech and was about to leave when Ian broke the silence.

“Mom, can you get the light and close the door. Thanks.”

“Baby,” she said then paused, “ ‘Member you promised not to hurt anybody ever again? 'Member you promised?”

Ian’s smile lit up his face like a hundred-watt bulb, “No problem, Mom. I’m a new man. That old Ian is way behind me now. Way behind.”

“And you should talk more Baby. Your father and I always have time for you to tell us what’s going on in your life.”

“That’s exactly what the shrink said, and yure right. I need to vocalize, not internalize, my ‘emotional panorama’. I’m sorry about what happened to that unfortunate homeless man and I’m sorry about all the pain and suffering I caused you and Dad, but that’s behind me. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”

“Just don’t forget that we love you and care about you. Oh, and you won’t forget what day it is this Sunday?”

“How could I forget Mom?”

Wanda smiled, maybe it was just her imagination but something about Ian was different, older maybe, wiser maybe, but he was definitely a different young man than the one who did that terrible thi…. Anyway, she interrupted herself, that is all behind them now, and she closed his door, certain that things would be different.

In her son's words, “today is the first day of the rest of their lives.”

CHECK BACK NEXT SUNDAY FOR EPISODE TWO