Week Nine: Answer Me! - UDC 6 - Saturday Conversations Continued...
41. Who?
They were completing the application while the boys did their homework at the kitchen table when Walt noticed the car pulling up and Alan getting out. He frowned, looked down at the application, then pressed a kiss to Helen's forehead. "Be right back."
Helen frowned at him, then looked out the window over Pete's shoulder. "Oh." Her attention shifted down to Pete, who hadn't noticed, and then over to Nick who had and was frowning at the sight of Alan, and nodded wordlessly to the window. Nick waved her off and Helen followed her husband outside, completed application in hand. "What's going on?"
Alan smiled and handed her a Polaroid picture of a couple, both red-haired, holding two little ones, seated on the front steps of a nice house. "Who you're meeting tomorrow afternoon."
42. What?
Helen studied them, then looked at Alan again as he read over the completed application. "You saw them this morning, then."
Alan nodded, distracted as he checked the application over. "Wish I'd thought to take them a Polaroid picture of you three, but yes. How is he?"
Helen pursed her lips. "At the moment? Lost in a text book that should be several grades over his head. Before that, we took them Roller Skating. And before that..."
At the silence, Alan glanced at her. "Helen?"
She looked toward the house, then at her husband. "You asked, before, what it was at lunch, and... Alan, did you know he tried cooking, badly, when his mother was out of sorts? Eight or nine, and he was taking care of her?" Walt winced at her tone.
43. When?
Alan glanced toward the house and saw Nick watching them from the front door. "No, because he wasn't talking about her. He had to get the keeping things to himself from somewhere, though, and it makes sense, at least a little, in that context." He waved at Nick to go back inside, and the teenager nodded and did so. "Roller Skating, huh?"
Walt smiled. "I think they had fun. Little squirt was skating circles around Nick, and then Nick showed him some fancy things to do on skates."
"And he hadn't been skating before," Helen added. "So how does the application look?"
"Very good," Alan said after a minute of silence.
44. Where?
Another minute or so, and Nick had joined them, not taking the silent no waves for an answer. Helen looked at him, then back at the house. "He's faced away from the window, Ma, and doing math."
Alan chuckled. "That'll distract him for a while, then." He handed his keys to Nick. "Here, there's two bags for him in the trunk from the Tathams. Do you mind, kid?"
"Nope."
Walt watched him go. "What did you do today?"
"Not much, really. Mrs. Tatham took the hint at my keeping him last night and took it upon herself to do his packing." Alan frowned. "I'm wondering what Dorinda actually said to her yesterday, now that I think about it."
45. Why?
Nick came back with two mid-sized bags that he wasn't struggling with and gave the keys back to Alan. "This was all he had there?"
"It's more than he had," Alan said, voice tight. "And go on, let us chat for a bit, all right?" They waited until Nick was out of earshot, and then Alan sighed. "Mrs. Tatham took Pete shopping when she realized that he didn't have much more than school clothes and the JROTC uniforms that aren't actually his size."
Helen stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "So while it might not seem like much, it's more than he had."
Alan met Walt's steady gaze. "It's not that they didn't care, really. It's that they were distant and their own children are grown."
"Which isn't what he needs right now," Walt agreed, filling the silence.
"No, it isn't." Alan glanced toward the house and found they were being watched from the porch. "Ah. Not so distracted he wouldn't notice Nick leaving the table. We're fine, Pete! Go do your homework!"
Pete rolled his eyes at them humorously and went back inside.