Shadu: You guys really want me to continue? I mean really, really, really, really, REALLY want me to continue? I guess I could….
Hokage: You know you will.
Shadu: Oh hush. I was savoring the moment. :: sniff:: Alright. I'll continue. As for the point of view thing, it started out as Serenity, and then my mom told me it sounded more like a son/daughter narrating rather than a sister. I'm kind of working off that. You'll see what I mean.
Hokage: Can we get on with it??
Shadu: Alright, okay, geez, don't go postal. (He's been very, uh, grumpy lately. It's the REALLY cold temperatures in my room that's doing it. Happens every year ;) Onward!
"Joey," a young woman's voice called, making Joey's headache go from a light thump to a hard pound. "Joey," she called again.
"What?" Joey asked groggily, not opening his eyes to the light that he knew was there.
"Can I watch TV?" the girl wondered.
"Why not?" Joey mumbled, rolling over to face the back of the couch.
"Thank you Joey," Joey's daughter thanked, wrapping her arms around Joey as best she could, only to have Joey push her away, warning her in his low, raspy voice to not do that.
Her face fell. All she wanted to do was show affection. He never let her do that anymore. And he never let her call him daddy anymore either. Everyone else she knew could at least call their fathers dad. But not her. She had to call him by his name. He got mad at being called daddy, or some variation of that. Most people she knew didn't know their parents' first names, and even if they did, they didn't allude to the fact they did.
With a defeated sigh, she sat down on the floor in front of the coffee table and turned on the TV. The wretched sound that the annoying box made racked into Joey's head, making his headache more like a stabbing knife now. Pulling a pillow from under his head, he pressed it on his ear. Relief came, his headache returning to a throb. It wasn't much, but at least the edge had been taken off of it.
"Jo, your lunch will be ready in a few more minutes," Mai's voice rang out from the kitchen.
"Okay mom," Jo nodded.
Jo, or Josephine as her official name called her, almost resented, now, being named after her father. At first, she thought it was great. And he was great. Then, he started drinking. Now, that's all he seemed to do. Drink, and sleep, drink and sleep.
He had been fired from his old job at the car mechanic and had picked up a job at the local bar. Why did it have to be the bar? Why did the mechanic have to go out of business? The job at the bar had been the only available job at the time. Joey started out okay, and then, he began to drink a little, then a little more. His shift went late into the night, and he came home even drunker than the night before. By the second month, he came home around midnight and collapsed on the couch, not being able to get into bed, not that Mai would've let him. He had to quit driving and begin walking to work. It was over two miles, but he walked it. Jo had hoped that winter weather would discourage that. She had hoped that every winter since it began. It never happened. He still continued to drink. It was horrible.
Jo never really understood her father. She thought that he meant well, but then again, she thought he was only thinking about himself. The fact that he never allowed her to call him daddy was unnerving. And Jo can't recall when he let her mom show him affection since he began his cycle. Jo loved her father, but she hated to see him like this. She remembered him actually being happy once. She remembered when him being happy before he began to drink. He seemed miserable now. So why didn't he stop?
"Jo, lunch is ready," Mai told her daughter.
"Okay," Jo nodded, standing up and walking into the kitchen, carefully walking around her dad.
Jo took her food from her mother, thanking her, and walked back into the living room. It was at times like this that she was grateful that Joey turned his back to the back of the couch when the TV was on. As long as she kept the TV on while she ate, she wouldn't have to smell his foul breath as she had her meal. She really didn't like being near her father, and then, she missed her father.
The man on the couch may have taken the identity of her father, but that man wasn't her father. He was just a drunkard that imposed as her father. Still, she thought with a sigh, she knew she couldn't escape the fact that the man she knew to be her father was gone. He left the day he took his first drink. Jo never understood why one drink did that to him, and when she had gone to her mother, Mai told her that she would explain later. Mai has yet to explain.
"Joseph Wheeler, can I see you in the bed room?" Mai called as she walked past the couch.
The sudden, loud sound shot pain through Joey's head. Joey cringed visibly, but Mai paid no notice of it as she stopped to look back at him expectantly.
"Fine," Joey grumbled as he pulled himself up off the couch and shakily onto his feet.
After letting the spinning sensation in his head pass, he followed Mai into the bedroom. Curious, Jo quietly set her plate down and followed, stopping right outside the door.
"What is it?" Joey groaned.
"We need to talk," Mai stated as if she had planned this in her head for a while.
"'Bout what?" Joey asked, sitting on the bed.
"About your drinking problem," Mai answered.
"I don't have a problem," Joey protested.
"Yes you do, it's gotten out of control," Mai countered.
"I can control it," Joey argued. "I can stop when I want. I don't have a problem."
"Joseph, you come home every night in the middle of the night and collapse on the couch! You can't even make your way down the hall to our bedroom!" Mai pointed out.
"You won't let me in bed," Joey told her pointedly.
"Because you smell like alcohol and cigarettes mixed with dirty clothes!" Mai shouted. "Why would I let someone like that into bed with me?!?!"
"Because I'm your husband!" Joey shouted back, standing to his feet.
"I don't know what's sorrier, your disbelief of your problem or you lying on the couch passed out!" Mai stated, almost yelling at the top of her lungs. "As far as I can tell, you care more about your alcohol than you do your own daughter!"
"I love Jo more than anything else!" Joey snapped.
"Oh yeah? Then prove it! When's her next performance?" Mai challenged.
"I don't know, but I'll be there!" Joey yelled.
"I'll believe it when I see it Joseph! I'm sick of you! Get out!" Mai shouted.
"What?!" Joey asked, shocked and angry at the same time.
"You heard me, GET OUT!" Mai shoved him towards the door.
"Fine, don't mind if I do!" Joey cried and stormed out of the house, not even noticing Jo at the bedroom door.
Jo watched as her mother came out of the bedroom, watching the door that Joey had gone through. She had the beginnings of tears in her eyes as she noticed her daughter sitting by the doorway staring up at her. Mai bent down and put a steadying hand on Jo.
"Honey, how much did you hear?" she asked, her voice shaking a little.
"All of it," Jo replied, sadness starting to come over her at the sight of her sad mother.
"Come, I think it's time I explained," Mai sighed as she stood up, shedding some tears as she rose.