Reunion
By Chip Ackley
Carol staggered home from work, her hair sticking to the back of her neck and her sweat-soaked T-shirt. The sun was unforgiving, and she knew the air-conditioned house would be her oasis. Sweat streaming down her sunburned face, she swung open the giant front door, awaiting that cool blast of air. Alas, the power outage earlier that day had turned off the air conditioner. All she wanted was an ice-cold glass of . . .
“Carol?” A voice from downstairs cried, “Did you break the A/C?”
Typical Greg.
“No! I haven’t been home!” she wheezed.
“Hey, what's with the kitchen? Did those construction guys finally show?”
Perplexed, Carol walked into the kitchen to find an enormous hole in the wall next to the oven.
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed.
On the counter sat a glass pitcher that Carol did not recognize. It was full of a red liquid.
She heard a flush, then a crash.
“Greg,” she whisper-shouted down the basement stairs. Grabbing the closest weapon she could find, “I think someone’s in the house!”
Greg rushed up the stairs and found his wife standing outside the bathroom door, clutching a fire extinguisher. They could hear the sink running. Whoever was lurking in the bathroom was coming out. The door flew open and out walked an imposing figure. Carol pulled the trigger on the fire extinguisher, engulfing the gargantuan man in a powdery cloud. At least, Carol thought it was a man. She squinted through the haze.
Greg stared at the six-foot giant, not quite believing his eyes, “Oh, no.”
The stranger locked his guilt-ridden eyes with Greg’s and whimpered, “Oh, yeah?”
As if things couldn’t get worse, two eight-year-old children came crashing through the kitchen hole. They parked themselves beside the stranger and, much to Carol’s chagrin, shouted, “Hey, Kool-Aid!!!”
The stranger looked down at Carol, great remorse in his eyes. He couldn’t let the kids down. He held out his hand toward the kitchen. Carol ducked, but not fast enough, as the flying red pitcher crashed into the side of her head. She fell to the floor in agony as Kool-Aid spilled everywhere.
“Alright Joseph, that is enough!” Greg yelled at the now mortified Kool-Aid man. “You haven’t been home for six years. You CANNOT just show up out of the blue like this!”
The thirsty children knew they weren’t wanted, and decided to leave the same way they came in. They were headed toward the exit when Joseph called out to them in his booming voice, “Wait! You never got your Kool-Aid.”
The little boy looked at him, his eyes misty with understanding, and nodded. The children jumped through the hole in the wall, never to be seen again.
“What are you doing here, Joseph? What, do you need money?” grumbled Greg, tending to his injured wife.
“No, I just really needed to see you, Dad.” He paused. “I’m getting married.”
A stunned Carol sat up despite her bleeding forehead. She shrieked, “Married?!”
“Oh, yeah, I met this girl, Sierra, at BevMo, and well, you know how it is. We started talking and we’ve been together ever since. I have to admit, I thought you’d be a little happier to see me.”
Greg was furious. After six years of no visits, no phone calls, not even so much as a text message, now he’s shown up to tell them he’s getting married? What kind of son would do that to his parents?
“And what? You expect that just because you’re getting married, you can undo six years of pain and worry?”
Carol was furious with Joseph, but quickly, her anger dissolved into relief. A girl had accepted her little boy for who he really was. When Joseph was young, the neighborhood kids had mocked him mercilessly, not just because of his unusual body shape, but also because of his tendency to spill everywhere. He hadn’t gone to the prom because the girls were too afraid he might stain their fancy dresses. They didn’t see what Carol saw.
Carol blushed as she remembered Joseph’s father. She would have married her Kool-Aid man, but a guy like that was hard to tie down. Greg had made a wonderful step-father, but Carol knew something would always be missing from her son’s life. She looked up at her Joseph, tears in her eyes, just barely managing to get back onto her feet. She grabbed her little boy by the middle, and pulled him into a hug. Greg looked up just as a wave of Kool-Aid splashed onto his head.
“I forgive you,” sobbed Carol, relieved to have her baby back in her life. “But, you are going to need to pay for the hole in the wall. By the way, the door is wide enough for you. You used to live here, remember?”
Joseph was touched by his mother’s forgiveness and realized, for the first time, just how much property damage he had caused worldwide. As if a light had been cast upon his red, liquid mind, he turned and spoke the words every parent wants to hear:
“Oh, yeah!”
The End
