Trigger Warning for depression.
Too Long to Leap
Hey, Dad. I made lunch," says Marco, slumping onto the cheap kitchen chair like it's a beanbag. "Frozen chicken cacciatore. It's Lean Cuisine. Better than your spaghetti, huh?"
"Uh-huh. Tastes good," Peter says mechanically, or thinks he does. He isn't sure if the words have actually left his mouth.
He's not used to talking now. It's too easy to float on the soap-bubble melodrama of "The Bold and the Beautiful"; easier, certainly, than making wooden small talk and pretending to laugh at Marco's forced jokes. They sit in silence for a while, but it's not comfortable, especially with that new band, the Food Fighters or whatever it is kids like these days, blaring out from the neighbours' yard.
"Dad, may I be excused? Jake's mom said I could go study at his house."
Marco's started to excuse himself from the table more and more lately. He'll eat hurriedly and furtively, gulping down his food as though he's a soldier on rations. Peter hasn't asked about it; doesn't want to ask, if he's being honest. The black circles under Marco's eyes and his sudden silences can be explained away by latent adolescence, some teenage hormonal thing. Kids need less sleep the older they get. He read that in some parenting manual, way back when he felt fit to call himself a parent. It doesn't make sense in his head, somehow, but the more obvious explanation, that Marco is sneaking off to parties and doing drugs, is too taxing to consider right now.
"You have a big test on Monday, huh?" he manages, through the fog in his head. "Math?"
"Um, Bio," says Marco quickly. "I have this paper coming up. We have to, uh, study the albino ferret. It's sort of complicated. It's about DNA structure and genes." Speaking of which... "I had a call. Your, uh, your history teacher told me you hadn't been handing in your quizzes. Said your grades were slipping from B pluses to C minuses."
If fear flits across his face it's gone, replaced by the usual grin.
"Don't worry, Dad. I'll handle it. I can ask Ms Drummoyne for extra credit. You know, for extracurricular activities." He snickers as if at some private joke, and Peter is taken aback by this new indifference to school. When did the happy kid who'd skip past him on the way to his second grade classroom grow this cavalier?
How does this work again? What would Eva have said?
"Okay. Marco, you're grounded. And let me know if you need help. Bio isn't my forte, but I can rustle up something."
It's easy enough to parrot, but Peter can't muster the words. Eva's gone, and the gulf between Peter and his son, her last legacy, seems too long to leap.