Running From An Angel,

Running From An Angel, Part Three (see Part One for info)


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

Doug and Skid made the trip to the hardware store the next morning, joined by Tess who had pleaded to come. They bought wood, nails, screws, and a toolbox as Doug explained he had never really got around to buying one before. After they got home and ate lunch, work started on the treehouse project and before nightfall there was a solid base erected in the giant oak tree, held up by a framework of supports. Nailed to a branch was a piece of paper, now slightly creased, on which were several plan drawings of what they were building. As the darkness took its place around the house, they sat down to a late supper of take-out pizza. There were some disagreements about the toppings, and bits of mushroom, spicy beef and red pepper made their way around the room as they were passed from pizza to pizza. Skid found it a very novel way to eat, but fun at the same time. Especially Kate's reaction to finding a piece of, God forbid, pineapple on her slice and lobbing it across the table. Doug had been about to tell her off for it, had it not landed right in his glass of water.

Skid didn't read to the girls that night, instead choosing to draw up some more plans for the treehouse and explaining them to Carol. She seemed very impressed, and also offered ideas once in a while - like the one for a small table built into the house. In the meantime, Doug put his daughters to bed and dug out a small photo album. He joined Carol and Skid back in the den, holding the red plasticky book. That evening passed with pictures and stories of growing up. As they all began to climb the stairs to bed later on, Doug touched Skid's arm and held him back a moment as Carol disappeared on the landing.
"Skid. I know I've never said this before, but I just wanted to let you know I never wanted to be a lousy father and I am sorry I was."
Unsure what to say, Skid started, "No, it's okay..."
"It's not okay. It's unforgivable. I have fought to the opposite of my own father for years but I still screwed up. I'm trying to make it up to you now. You know I'm always going to be here now, don't you? I'm not running away from this, or you, anymore."
"Doug...I never thought you were a bad father...well, maybe that's not true, but I didn't know you then. You were just some guy who didn't want a kid at that time in his life. But now I do know you, and I'd prefer to have you as a father now you're happy than to have had you when you didn't want me in the first place."
Doug, about to say something else, stopped. Smiling with one side of his mouth he reached out and touched the top of Skid's head, as if to tousle it, then said "You're a smart kid, you know that?"
Skid grinned back, and turned, heading up the stairs and to his bed.

The rest of the week went by in a whirl. Doug had returned on Wednesday evening from an emergency home visit, and failing to find everyone else in the house, he discovered them in the garden - the twins playing some game with a skipping rope, Carol in a sun lounger and Skid up the tree trying to work out what sort of roof to build. Before anyone could notice he was there, he stopped and said loudly, "Who feels like a holiday?"
Carol jumped slightly and turned around, and the twins stopped jumping and ran to him. Skid crawled to the edge of the wood and climbed down a rope ladder to the ground.
"What do you mean, holiday, Doug?"
"Just a break for a couple of days. Go down to the beach, get some rays..."
The girls were already jumping up and down after hearing the word 'beach'. Picking Tess up and walking heavily over to the other sun lounger with Kate balanced on his left foot, he smiled at Carol.
"C'mon."
She broke a smile back at him. "I'd love to. Skid?"
Now having made his descent, Skid wandered over, feeling a little like he didn't want to interrupt this family moment for them. Doug turned around to see him.
"How'd you feel about coming away with us for a few days, just down the coast a bit?"
Previously thinking that this was a plan for after he had gone home, Skid felt a little stupid, and only nodded in response until Kate leapt from Doug's foot to clamp herself onto Skid's leg, singing something along the lines of "Skid's coming tooo-oooo!". That forced a grin out of him and he said "I'd love to."
"Well, that settles it then. Good job I booked the place this morning!"
Carol whacked him lightly on the arm. "You booked and presumed we'd say yes?"
"Well, I was right wasn't I?!"
She leant over and kissed him softly.

They spent the Thursday, Friday and Saturday in a small house on a beach in Northern California. The fact that it was on a long, sandy beach compensated for the fact that Skid had to share a room with Tess and Kate. He wrote postacards home, one each for his mom and his two brothers. On the Friday, he, Doug and Carol even had a surfing lesson for the hell of it while the twins played games in a kids beach club. Carol managed to beat both Doug and Skid by staying upright for a good thirty seconds before wobbling over and falling onto Doug who had just made it to the standing postition. They ate out for dinner, and despite trying a variety of different restaurants, Kate always ordered chicken and fries wherever she went. Doug told her that someday she'd turn into a chicken if she wasn't careful, to which she started clucking and flapping and it took some time to get her to sit down and eat her meal.

They ended their break on the Sunday afternoon when they got into the estate car that Doug had bought in part exhcange for his Jeep - between them, they had also bought a smaller car to travel to work in. The journey back, though much shorter than the trip from Nebraska to Seattle, felt almost as long to Skid, who had made the unwise decision to sit between the two children (both of whom consumed a large amount of sugar on the journey). It wasn't that he didn't love them to bits. It was just that sometimes he needed to be in a place where his knees weren't wedged under his chin and he didn't have to keep passing Barbie dolls back and forth. Around the halfway point of the trip, Carol detected a certain discomfort in the back seat and rummaged in a bag until she found what she was looking for - two puzzle magazines. Passing them back to Tess and Kate, she smiled at Skid.
"This should help you out a bit. Here you go, girls. Skid, how about we stop at the next rest-stop and swap places?"
Going against his judgement to be polite and stay where he was, he blurted, "Is that okay?"
Doug laughed behind the steering wheel, taking a glance into the backseat through the rearview mirror.
"It's no problem. I'm shorter than you anyway so it won't be too bad."
"Thanks. It's just, well, I think my legs might fall off soon if I'm, not careful. I don't think there's any blood reaching them anymore..."
They all laughed again. Within five minutes, things had quietened down again and Doug had pulled into a rest-stop for a brief game of musical chairs. Skid unfolded himself and got into the passenger seat, stretching his legs out comfortably as Carol hit her head on the roof of the car climbing into the rear seat. Skid heard the thump of head on ceiling and tried not to laugh. Once settled - "Mommyyyy! You're squishing me!" - they set off again, until finally at about 10pm they pulled up outside the house. Tess and Kate were dozing in the backseat, so while Doug and Carol carried them inside, Skid unpacked the two suitcases from the trunk and his own backpack. Closing the car up, he went inside with the cases and put them down in the hall before crashing out onto the couch. He was almost asleep when he felt Carol leaning over him.
"Skid...c'mon." She stood him up, passing him his backpack and steered him in the direction of the stairs.
"Go to bed. Sleep well."
"Thanks. You too." He made it up the stairs and into his room. Not concerned about changing, he took off the sweat pants he was wearing and fell into the bed. He considered those past few days as some of the best he'd ever had, but they had been exhausting. Refusing to think any more, his brain switched off and Skid fell asleep.

By the following afternoon, after a brief but nice lie-in in the morning, Skid was ready to take on the responsibility of looking after the twins until Doug finished his shift at 7pm. After a short discussion, it had been agreed that Skid would take Kate and Tess out to buy some small bits and pieces to go in their new treehouse and they'd get McDonalds for dinner while they were there. Before she left, Carol wrote out a page of telephone numbers, pager numbers, cell phone numbers, and even the code to the burglar alarm in case they had difficulty with that. When she pointed it out to Skid and noticed his eyebrows rise, she said, "It's not that I don't trust you. But I don't leave them alone with anyone very often. You can understand that?"
"Sure. Did you want to add the combination number for your bike lock too?"
"Oh ha ha!" she said, and tapped his arm.
"Don't worry about a thing. We'll be fine."
"Thanks, Skid."
She left, kissing Tess goodbye and yelling at Kate that she was going. Kate yelled "Bye!" from upstairs, where she was looking at a catalogue of children's toys and games. Skid closed the door behind her and turned back to Tess, who was waving from the window.
"You want to show me how to play that game now?"

Doug returned home that evening to a scene of contentment. The three siblings sat ni the lounge in front of a video of 'The Lion King'. Two Happy Meal toys perched on the arm of a chair. Kate was lying on the floor, with a brightly coloured rug over her as she watched the screen, and Tess sat in one of two small plastic chairs. Skid sat in an armchair, screwing together a wooden table that went with the chairs, with one eye on the TV. A new beanbag sat nearby as well, and on it some crayoned drawings.
"You guys had a good day I see!"
From their various positions, they all nodded. Tess got up and greeted Doug, taking his hand and showing him all their new purchases. Skid finished putting the table together and set it upright.
"There ya go. All ready for tomorrow."
"What's tomorrow?" asked Doug, looking at the table.
"We're having a treehouse party!" Kate got to her feet.
"Yeah, an opening-the-treehouse party!" Tess chimed in.
"Oh you are, are you? Well, don't I get an invitation?"
"Daddy, you're not going to be here because you're at the hospital tomorrow."
"And the party's in the afternoon."
"Ahh, damn! You think we can have another one sometime for me and your mom?"
"Yeah!"
"Two parties!"
"Alright. How was your day, Skid?! They didn't give you too much trouble did they?"
"Naah, they were fine. No problem at all. You have a good day?"
This experience of greeting his father after a day at work was new, Skid realised. But if it was new, why did it feel so normal?
"Yeah, you know. Sick kids suck! I'm going to change, then it's bathtime for you two, okay?"
"Okay!" Tess said happily, at the same time that Kate said, "Nooooo!"


The next three days were filled with much the same routine. Either Doug or Carol would be at home in the mornings, in a cleverly engineered timetable that meant Skid could sleep in, shower and have a few hours to himself out of the day. He told them that he didn't mind watching them all day, but as they kept pointing out to each other, this was meant to be his holiday too. And there weren't many teenage boys willing to sacrifice most of their time to watching their little sisters. In the afternoons, Skid, Tess and Kate would add more finishing touches (to which there seemed to be no end) to the treehouse, or play simple board games, or take short trips to the playground at the end of the road. Whenever Doug or Carol returned home, the three of them could be found in front of a Disney video, or quietly drawing with Skid maybe demonstrating how to make a paper airplane. That was how both Doug and Carol found the twins and Skid on Thursday night when they unexpectedly arrived home together and entered the house only to be hit by several hundred paper airplanes. Spotting writing on them, Carol bent down and picked up one while Doug chased around the room after the two screaming children. The plane had obviously been made by Skid as it eve had ailerons, but it had been decorated by Tess who had written in very wobbly print, "Welcome home Mommy and Daddy I love you". Still holding the piece of intricately folded paper, she looked up to see Doug holding Skid under one arm, yelling that Skid was his hostage and that the girls had to give him a kiss hello before Skid could go free. Smiling, she put the paper plane into her pocket to be stored at a later date, and went to join in the fun.

Once they had all settled down and picked up all the planes, Tess announced that she would only get in the bath if her parents saw their treehouse first. They had spent a large portion of the day drawing picture that Skid had nailed onto the walls for them in between painting the outside with a woodstain, and they were very proud of it. Looking out of a window at the increasingly grim sky, Doug said, "It looks like it's going to storm, Tess. I'm not sure we should be up in a tree when the storm breaks."
"Pleeeeeaaase? We'll be quick!"
Doug looked at Carol, who shrugged. "Okay. But no more than five minutes. And if I feel a drop of rain, we're coming back indoors."
"Okay!"
They trooped outside. Skid glanced up and then to the horizon over the lake, where the storm clouds were tall and black and moving fast. Looked like it was going to be a big one. He loved storms but right now he hoped it held out long enough for him to pull a tarpaulin over the treehouse.
"Hey, this is really excellent! Skid, you've done a great job!" Carol called down from the 'doorway'.
"I did a good job to, Mommy, look!"
"Yeah, they're really lovely drawings!"
Standing on the rope ladder, Doug peered in too and called back down, "Yeah, good job. This is the business!"
"Thanks. I'm not sure how many people it can hold though, so don't go up just yet Doug."
"Okay."
Doug and Carol swapped so that he could get a look, before a roll of thunder bounced off the slopes further down the river and ended the housewarming. No rain fell, but the warning was enough. Kate climbed down the rope ladder backwards, Carol reaching out beside her in case she slipped. Doug picked Tess up and descended holding her with one arm and the ladder with another, and they all made for the house with Kate running on ahead with her hands over her ears.
"She's not fond of storms?" Skid asked Doug, who still held Tess.
"Nope. And she's a screamer, so let's all hope it doesn't go on too late tonight." He grinned lopsidedly.
"Oh boy."

When the storm finally broke with a loud thunderclap that seemed to hit them directly, Skid presumed the screams downstairs came from Kate. But just as the rain really started to pound on the roof, his bedroom door squeaked open and Tess' head popped round, wide-eyed.
"Hey Tess. You want to come in?"
She nodded, and came up to the bed where Skid sat, looking out of the window at the rain. She was wearing her pajamas and holding a half-eaten cookie.
"Here." He lifted her up and put her down on the bed by the window.
"You scared of thunderstorms too?"
She nodded again. "It's loud and scary." A bolt of lightening lit the room from outside and she flinched, trying not to jump.
"I love thunderstorms. Cm'ere. He pulled her in front of him so she sat right by the window. Leaning over her shoulder, he pointed up at the sky. "Next time you see lightening, start counting like this: one elephant, two elephant, three elephant. The more elephants you count, then the further away the storm is from here."
They sat for a while in silence, watching and waiting. A bolt of electric blue light ricocheted through a dark cloud suddenly, sending Tess backwards with surprise into Skid. He caught her against his chest and held her there, starting the count. "One elephant, two..." She joined in on the third, and counted until six when they heard the thunder booming and Tess put her hands over her ears.

The thunder and lightening faded after half an hour, although the rain continued to pummel the surrounding area. When Doug came looking for Tess to put her to bed, he found her asleep against Skid, who was still watching the aftermath through his window.
"Hey," he whispered. "She okay?"
"Yeah," Skid whispered back. "She's asleep. Is Kate okay?"
"Yup, we put the hi-fi headphones on her until it died down. She was singing Sesame Street songs real loud. It was worse than the thunder."
Skid smiled. Doug went to the bed and scooped Tess up. "I didn't thin she was that bothered by storms. She gets overshadowed by her sister sometimes."
"Yeah. I hope she feels a bit better about them now. I love watching them myself."
"Yeah. Okay, well I'm going to put her to bed. You staying here?"
"Just for a little while longer."
"Okay. Thanks, Skid."
He left the room with the sleeping child. Skid got up off the bed and dragged his backpack out from underneath the bed. Digging down to the bottom of it, he located his camera and pulled it out. Opening the window careful, he leaned out a little way and waited for a streak of lightening in the distance before snapping the shutter. He now had four shots left for the rest of his time there. Most of the pictures were taken at the beach, but he wanted at least one good one of Doug, Carol and the twins before he left. By the treehouse maybe. As he closed the window back up again, he heard the door open downstairs. Who was going out in this? He hoped the tarapaulin hadn't blown away. He left his room and went to the top of the stairs to see if he could see what was going on, but the view was blocked by Carol standing in the doorway with Doug behind her. There was someone at the door. He started down the stairs as Doug turned to look up at him, obviously about to call him.
"Skid - "
As he reached the hallway floor, he looked out of the door from behind Carol, and saw who it was. Rob. And he was really messed up.
"Shit," he whispered under his breath and pushed past Carol gently, apologising. "I got it. Thanks, " he said to Doug, who nodded and held Carol's shoulder, moving her away from the door.

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