Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Quinoa
Dan yawned and put down the book he'd been reading. He'd been doing a lot of reading since his release from the hospital a few weeks before. Unfortunately, it was mostly wasted, since his phalanx of doctors had gotten together and decided he couldn't read or see anything that wasn't completely relaxing, as in anything remotely work-related, basketball-related, or as one of them had said somewhat vaguely, "stimulating". He hadn't understood what that meant until he'd come home and found his entire collection of Playboys missing. Karen assured him they were just put away safely, and not gone entirely, but he wasn't sure he trusted the little twinkle in her eye when she'd said it. The Playboys had always been a sore spot.
Keith had been his saviour. Trapped inside with nothing to do, his brother had turned up with a stack of books he'd read for his Men's Book Club. Dan had had no idea Keith was in any kind of book club, or what a Men's Book Club might be, but the books had generally turned out to be great, mostly adventure and travel type stuff. William Least Heat Moon had been a bit of a pansy, and no force on earth was going to get him to read anything with "Hornblower" in the title, but he was currently halfway through A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, who, he'd decided, was his new favourite. Anyone who could make a fear of being attacked by bears into one of the funniest things he'd ever read was the goods. He made a note to ask the boys to pick him up some more Bryson from the bookstore.
Well. Speak of the devil. Dan eyed the tray Nathan was carrying. "You do realize I am perfectly capable of getting my own lunch, right?"
Nathan set the tray down on the low coffee table. "Yep. Don't care. The doctor said to limit exertion, which right now includes pretty much everything. Besides, it's nice out here," he added, gesturing around the glassed in porch that was serving as Dan's convalescing space. He and Nathan were living at Karen's for the moment, since their house didn't have a bedroom on the ground floor. It was odd being back here. The last time he'd slept under this roof, it had been on the couch, and the next morning he'd awoken to find two suitcases packed by the door. He could tell Karen remembered that night as well, by her stiff formality and her unwillingness to be alone with him when he first arrived, but now she seemed okay. In the meantime, he avoided the living room and spent most of his day on the patio they'd enclosed when they first bought the house, to which the air conditioning fortunately extended and where Lucas and Nathan had moved a little refrigerator, easy chair, and bookcase. No television though. There was not a TV to be found in the entire house at the moment, since they couldn't figure out a way to block the medically-forbidden ESPN. No wonder he was getting so much reading done.
Ah, here came the other nurse-slash-warden now. Lucas was carrying water bottles and another book. "I swung by the garage this morning and Keith asked me to bring this month's book over. He's done with it now, so you can keep it as long as you want." He passed the book to his father, who flipped through it. North to the Night. There were pictures: a lot of snow, a lot of ice. And what was that cat doing sitting on the guy's head? Oh well, he had a lot of time to find out. The doctors informed him it would be at least 6 weeks before he was allowed out of this zone of nothing they'd cocooned him in.
Nathan had disappeared and reappeared with a fruit plate. Dan grimaced. As awful as having a heart attack had been, the recovery was shaping up just as bad. No TV, heaven only knew what was going on over at Harris, and no real food. No more than one egg a day, and forget any kind of red meat. No butter on anything, even toast. Dairy products in general were limited. He'd actually been reduced to some vile excrescence called Toffuti for dessert. Piles of steamed vegetables, but no salt allowed. Last night he'd been forced to eat some kind of weird Peruvian grain called quinoa, which as far as he was concerned could stay in Peru until the end of time. If he saw one more boneless, skinless chicken breast he was going to scream.
This meal was no different. A small ham and cheese sandwich on whole grain bread with what looked like a small sink beside it, full of salad. No dressing though, just lemon wedges. He sighed. And he just knew the ham was going to turn out to be low-salt, the cheese low-fat, and the mayo made from canola oil. He took a bite. Yep. The whole thing was ersatz. "I don't suppose I could convince you to go make me a little steak..."
Lucas snorted and Nathan guffawed. "Nice try, Pop. Eat your salad."
Dan poked at the lettuce. "You know, the Bible says to honor thy father."
Lucas put down North to the Night, whose pictures he'd been perusing. "We are. We're honoring him by making sure he lives to see 40. Stop whining. We still have quinoa."
Dan hurriedly pulled back. "Gak. However did you find that stuff, anyway?"
"Ornish diet. Karen bought a few books," Nathan said. "It's supposed to be very high in protein."
"Yeah, well, so is a pork chop."
"Give it up, Dad," Lucas said, returning to the book. "Nathan and I have you boxed in."
Dan looked glumly to the vat of rabbit food. "Great," he mumbled. "They're ganging up on me again." He hadn't really meant to say it, nor for them to hear it, but when he heard the book fall from Lucas' fingers, he knew they had. He looked up. Nathan was white as a ghost, and Lucas was staring down at the floor. "I'm sorry, I didn't... I mean, I know you didn't... Look, just forget I said it." Lucas stood and spun out of the room. Nathan was trying to look anywhere but at his father. "Really. I was just kidding."
Nathan shook his head. "No you weren't. We did a horrible thing, and it almost killed you. You should be mad at us."
Dan gawped. "You think I'm mad at you? Why would I be mad at you?"
Nathan's hands were twisting together. "Because of what I said in court... about what we were trying to do. It made you have that heart attack."
Dan took a deep breath and fought back the urge to thwap his younger son. "Nathan, it may have looked like that, but when I described everything to the doctor, he said the attack had probably started earlier, when you read that letter from your mom, or maybe even when Whitey was talking. And really it started when I let my blood pressure get so high because I kept putting off the physical for the Harris executives' insurance. Susan let me have it with both barrels for that one. Nothing you said or did caused me to have a heart attack."
Nathan shook his head. "It's still my fault. That whole Art of War thing was my idea." A hint of desperation was creeping into his voice. "I just... we just... We didn't really want revenge. I used the wrong word in court. We just wanted you to be different. Less aggressive. Less competitive. We didn't hate you."
"I did, a little," came Lucas' voice from the door. "I was still mad at you about Nathan's mom. And some other stuff, but mostly about that. We did want to change you, but I think I may have wanted a little revenge too."
Dan felt that weird fluttering in his chest and took several deep breaths, which seemed to help. "I think... No, I know I probably deserve that anger, Lucas, although not for the reasons you think. Your mom and I had a very complicated relationship back then. I knew she was pregnant, but I went off to college anyway and met Deb. I basically abandoned Karen to single motherhood. The longer I was away from her, the more I knew I couldn't do it. As much as I liked Deb, your mom was pregnant, and it wasn't right to let her do it alone. It certainly wasn't fair to Deb to drag her into something she didn't even know she was a part of, and that she never would have agreed to had she known."
Lucas sat back down. "So I shouldn't be angry at you for cheating on Mom, I should be angry for almost abandoning us entirely? I'm not sure which is worse, Dad."
"I was 18, and completely unprepared to be a father and a husband. I had all this opportunity, and all I saw was you and your mother, blocking my way. I was selfish. I'm sorry."
Lucas shook his head. "It's gonna take more than that, Dad."
"I know."
The two silently made eye contact for a moment, before Dan broke the gaze and turned to Nathan. "What about you? Any particular reason you decided to turn to Sun Tzu for advice on coping with me?"
Nathan opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked helplessly at his older brother, who shrugged. "Tell him the whole story, man." So he'd told him about walking down the side of the road, and realizing where all their fighting was coming from, and their resolve to try and change their father into someone different. Dan was silent throughout the whole thing and for a few minutes after.
"Dad, please, say something," Nathan begged.
Dan considered his response, and then just decided to go with his first question, which was "What, precisely were you trying to change me into?"
Nathan shrugged. "Someone else. This ideal father I'd been building in my head my whole life. Sort of a combination between Hercules and Cliff Huxtable." Lucas snorted and Dan laughed. Nathan looked sheepish. "Look, I know it's corny, but you try growing up without a father and see what you come up with. Reality has nothing to do with it."
Dan chortled some more, and then stopped, serious. "Okay, first of all, I don't even want to imagine what it would have taken to turn me into Cosby. Second, you're not growing up without a father anymore, so stop talking like that. And third, you're right. I was trying to make you compete against each other. I had this dim idea it would help you both be better ballplayers, and didn't stop to consider that wasn't necessarily compatible with being better brothers. Heck, I'm only figuring that part out myself now. You two figured it out on your own, despite me, and managed to be even better ballplayers at the same time. I'm proud of you, on both counts, and hope eventually you'll forgive and forget?" This last had been said in an almost pleading tone he had never heard come out of his mouth before. He wasn't sure he liked it.
Lucas and Nathan looked at each other, and Lucas spoke. "If you can forgive that whole plotting thing, we can. But not forget. I'm tired of pretending unpleasant things never happened. I'd rather acknowledge we were both wrong and move on."
"It's a deal then," Dan said, turning back to the salad that ate Manhattan. "Now, about this bunny food..."
Nathan jumped up. "That's it, I'm getting the quinoa," he said, leaving the porch.
Dan made a face. "He's going to kill me with all this healthy food of his."
Lucas reached out and grabbed his hand. "Do you have any idea how scared he was in that courtroom? His mom is murdered and less than a year later he has to watch his father almost die? The EMTs strapped you to a monitor, Dad. We heard your heart stop." Dan blanched. "See, I knew you hadn't thought of that."
Dan nodded. "You are so much like your mom sometimes. Thanks for pointing out what I should have known already."
"Hey, someone has to be the adult around here," Lucas said airily. "And Nathan's like his mom, which means he wants to take care of you. Let him hover."
Dan nodded again. "I'm still not eating that quinoa crap again. I vote we scatter it on the lawn and watch the birds get indigestion."
Lucas looked around to make sure Nathan wasn't back yet. "Second," he whispered. "That stuff is nasty." They were still chuckling when Nathan came back.
Dan yawned and put down the book he'd been reading. He'd been doing a lot of reading since his release from the hospital a few weeks before. Unfortunately, it was mostly wasted, since his phalanx of doctors had gotten together and decided he couldn't read or see anything that wasn't completely relaxing, as in anything remotely work-related, basketball-related, or as one of them had said somewhat vaguely, "stimulating". He hadn't understood what that meant until he'd come home and found his entire collection of Playboys missing. Karen assured him they were just put away safely, and not gone entirely, but he wasn't sure he trusted the little twinkle in her eye when she'd said it. The Playboys had always been a sore spot.
Keith had been his saviour. Trapped inside with nothing to do, his brother had turned up with a stack of books he'd read for his Men's Book Club. Dan had had no idea Keith was in any kind of book club, or what a Men's Book Club might be, but the books had generally turned out to be great, mostly adventure and travel type stuff. William Least Heat Moon had been a bit of a pansy, and no force on earth was going to get him to read anything with "Hornblower" in the title, but he was currently halfway through A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, who, he'd decided, was his new favourite. Anyone who could make a fear of being attacked by bears into one of the funniest things he'd ever read was the goods. He made a note to ask the boys to pick him up some more Bryson from the bookstore.
Well. Speak of the devil. Dan eyed the tray Nathan was carrying. "You do realize I am perfectly capable of getting my own lunch, right?"
Nathan set the tray down on the low coffee table. "Yep. Don't care. The doctor said to limit exertion, which right now includes pretty much everything. Besides, it's nice out here," he added, gesturing around the glassed in porch that was serving as Dan's convalescing space. He and Nathan were living at Karen's for the moment, since their house didn't have a bedroom on the ground floor. It was odd being back here. The last time he'd slept under this roof, it had been on the couch, and the next morning he'd awoken to find two suitcases packed by the door. He could tell Karen remembered that night as well, by her stiff formality and her unwillingness to be alone with him when he first arrived, but now she seemed okay. In the meantime, he avoided the living room and spent most of his day on the patio they'd enclosed when they first bought the house, to which the air conditioning fortunately extended and where Lucas and Nathan had moved a little refrigerator, easy chair, and bookcase. No television though. There was not a TV to be found in the entire house at the moment, since they couldn't figure out a way to block the medically-forbidden ESPN. No wonder he was getting so much reading done.
Ah, here came the other nurse-slash-warden now. Lucas was carrying water bottles and another book. "I swung by the garage this morning and Keith asked me to bring this month's book over. He's done with it now, so you can keep it as long as you want." He passed the book to his father, who flipped through it. North to the Night. There were pictures: a lot of snow, a lot of ice. And what was that cat doing sitting on the guy's head? Oh well, he had a lot of time to find out. The doctors informed him it would be at least 6 weeks before he was allowed out of this zone of nothing they'd cocooned him in.
Nathan had disappeared and reappeared with a fruit plate. Dan grimaced. As awful as having a heart attack had been, the recovery was shaping up just as bad. No TV, heaven only knew what was going on over at Harris, and no real food. No more than one egg a day, and forget any kind of red meat. No butter on anything, even toast. Dairy products in general were limited. He'd actually been reduced to some vile excrescence called Toffuti for dessert. Piles of steamed vegetables, but no salt allowed. Last night he'd been forced to eat some kind of weird Peruvian grain called quinoa, which as far as he was concerned could stay in Peru until the end of time. If he saw one more boneless, skinless chicken breast he was going to scream.
This meal was no different. A small ham and cheese sandwich on whole grain bread with what looked like a small sink beside it, full of salad. No dressing though, just lemon wedges. He sighed. And he just knew the ham was going to turn out to be low-salt, the cheese low-fat, and the mayo made from canola oil. He took a bite. Yep. The whole thing was ersatz. "I don't suppose I could convince you to go make me a little steak..."
Lucas snorted and Nathan guffawed. "Nice try, Pop. Eat your salad."
Dan poked at the lettuce. "You know, the Bible says to honor thy father."
Lucas put down North to the Night, whose pictures he'd been perusing. "We are. We're honoring him by making sure he lives to see 40. Stop whining. We still have quinoa."
Dan hurriedly pulled back. "Gak. However did you find that stuff, anyway?"
"Ornish diet. Karen bought a few books," Nathan said. "It's supposed to be very high in protein."
"Yeah, well, so is a pork chop."
"Give it up, Dad," Lucas said, returning to the book. "Nathan and I have you boxed in."
Dan looked glumly to the vat of rabbit food. "Great," he mumbled. "They're ganging up on me again." He hadn't really meant to say it, nor for them to hear it, but when he heard the book fall from Lucas' fingers, he knew they had. He looked up. Nathan was white as a ghost, and Lucas was staring down at the floor. "I'm sorry, I didn't... I mean, I know you didn't... Look, just forget I said it." Lucas stood and spun out of the room. Nathan was trying to look anywhere but at his father. "Really. I was just kidding."
Nathan shook his head. "No you weren't. We did a horrible thing, and it almost killed you. You should be mad at us."
Dan gawped. "You think I'm mad at you? Why would I be mad at you?"
Nathan's hands were twisting together. "Because of what I said in court... about what we were trying to do. It made you have that heart attack."
Dan took a deep breath and fought back the urge to thwap his younger son. "Nathan, it may have looked like that, but when I described everything to the doctor, he said the attack had probably started earlier, when you read that letter from your mom, or maybe even when Whitey was talking. And really it started when I let my blood pressure get so high because I kept putting off the physical for the Harris executives' insurance. Susan let me have it with both barrels for that one. Nothing you said or did caused me to have a heart attack."
Nathan shook his head. "It's still my fault. That whole Art of War thing was my idea." A hint of desperation was creeping into his voice. "I just... we just... We didn't really want revenge. I used the wrong word in court. We just wanted you to be different. Less aggressive. Less competitive. We didn't hate you."
"I did, a little," came Lucas' voice from the door. "I was still mad at you about Nathan's mom. And some other stuff, but mostly about that. We did want to change you, but I think I may have wanted a little revenge too."
Dan felt that weird fluttering in his chest and took several deep breaths, which seemed to help. "I think... No, I know I probably deserve that anger, Lucas, although not for the reasons you think. Your mom and I had a very complicated relationship back then. I knew she was pregnant, but I went off to college anyway and met Deb. I basically abandoned Karen to single motherhood. The longer I was away from her, the more I knew I couldn't do it. As much as I liked Deb, your mom was pregnant, and it wasn't right to let her do it alone. It certainly wasn't fair to Deb to drag her into something she didn't even know she was a part of, and that she never would have agreed to had she known."
Lucas sat back down. "So I shouldn't be angry at you for cheating on Mom, I should be angry for almost abandoning us entirely? I'm not sure which is worse, Dad."
"I was 18, and completely unprepared to be a father and a husband. I had all this opportunity, and all I saw was you and your mother, blocking my way. I was selfish. I'm sorry."
Lucas shook his head. "It's gonna take more than that, Dad."
"I know."
The two silently made eye contact for a moment, before Dan broke the gaze and turned to Nathan. "What about you? Any particular reason you decided to turn to Sun Tzu for advice on coping with me?"
Nathan opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked helplessly at his older brother, who shrugged. "Tell him the whole story, man." So he'd told him about walking down the side of the road, and realizing where all their fighting was coming from, and their resolve to try and change their father into someone different. Dan was silent throughout the whole thing and for a few minutes after.
"Dad, please, say something," Nathan begged.
Dan considered his response, and then just decided to go with his first question, which was "What, precisely were you trying to change me into?"
Nathan shrugged. "Someone else. This ideal father I'd been building in my head my whole life. Sort of a combination between Hercules and Cliff Huxtable." Lucas snorted and Dan laughed. Nathan looked sheepish. "Look, I know it's corny, but you try growing up without a father and see what you come up with. Reality has nothing to do with it."
Dan chortled some more, and then stopped, serious. "Okay, first of all, I don't even want to imagine what it would have taken to turn me into Cosby. Second, you're not growing up without a father anymore, so stop talking like that. And third, you're right. I was trying to make you compete against each other. I had this dim idea it would help you both be better ballplayers, and didn't stop to consider that wasn't necessarily compatible with being better brothers. Heck, I'm only figuring that part out myself now. You two figured it out on your own, despite me, and managed to be even better ballplayers at the same time. I'm proud of you, on both counts, and hope eventually you'll forgive and forget?" This last had been said in an almost pleading tone he had never heard come out of his mouth before. He wasn't sure he liked it.
Lucas and Nathan looked at each other, and Lucas spoke. "If you can forgive that whole plotting thing, we can. But not forget. I'm tired of pretending unpleasant things never happened. I'd rather acknowledge we were both wrong and move on."
"It's a deal then," Dan said, turning back to the salad that ate Manhattan. "Now, about this bunny food..."
Nathan jumped up. "That's it, I'm getting the quinoa," he said, leaving the porch.
Dan made a face. "He's going to kill me with all this healthy food of his."
Lucas reached out and grabbed his hand. "Do you have any idea how scared he was in that courtroom? His mom is murdered and less than a year later he has to watch his father almost die? The EMTs strapped you to a monitor, Dad. We heard your heart stop." Dan blanched. "See, I knew you hadn't thought of that."
Dan nodded. "You are so much like your mom sometimes. Thanks for pointing out what I should have known already."
"Hey, someone has to be the adult around here," Lucas said airily. "And Nathan's like his mom, which means he wants to take care of you. Let him hover."
Dan nodded again. "I'm still not eating that quinoa crap again. I vote we scatter it on the lawn and watch the birds get indigestion."
Lucas looked around to make sure Nathan wasn't back yet. "Second," he whispered. "That stuff is nasty." They were still chuckling when Nathan came back.