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Bowling: The Sport of the Broken Hearted
War and Peace
Chapter 17
At four o'clock in the morning Ginny phoned Mac from the couch.
"Gwen?" was Mac's sleepy, yet hopeful greeting after a few rings.
"No."
"Ginny what are you doing with my cell phone?"
"Calling you obviously, what else would I do with it?"
"With you Ginny, one can only guess."
"That's not true."
"What can I help you with?" Mac asked wisely deciding not to argue the point.
"I like Earnest. I thought I would tell you that first."
"Alright."
"Well, you know, normally, it takes a long time for me to break people in, but Earnest was already to go. Like take-out when they deliver it to your car." It was at this point that Mac decided this conversation had to end due to complete pointlessness.
"You do realize I'm paying for this call Ginny and you're just outside my door?"
"I have to tell you something else. I really like ice cream." Yes, definitely gone on too long.
"That's great Ginny. Go to bed. There is no way Sparrow and Dad would let you be up this late, no sorry this early," finished Mac looking at her alarm clock.
"She's your mother too."
"Yes." This conversation had taken a turn she hadn't expected.
"She had a mother herself you know."
"She still does, even if at the moment she refuses to acknowledge that."
"And Mom had a Father too. Did you know he liked cheese whiz on his hamburgers? He said it brought the flavors out."
"Ginny you never met your grandfather."
"That's not relative right now Mac."
"What does that mean?"
"The important thing to remember is that Grandpa liked flavor. But the tricky thing about flavors is that some don't mix well with others and when that happens, it's best to add salt to make them all taste the same again. Or scrape off the cheese-whiz. No, wait that doesn't work, that'd be murder."
"Ginny-" But the words were lost to Mac about how to proceed. She had never been good with her sister's double talk.
"Goodnight." The phone clicked soon after. Mac starred at it in her hand in bewildered confusion and concern. Sitting in her overly squishy bed, Mac debated whether to go out to her living room and demand to know what Ginny was taking about or just leave it for now. No, she finally decided, Ginny would never talk. No, this was one for Addie to try and decipher…or Earnest, since he had somehow been blessed with the ability to decipher Ginny logic. Which lately had become much more worrisome and much more concerning then in the past.
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Finn and Watson were always the first ones up in the morning. It had become ritual. Watson would make up a fruit salad for both of them and the two would read sections of the morning paper while eating it. They never spoke. Today seemed to start off no different.
"You want the front page first?"
"Nah, I'll stick with the comics for now, Grandpa." The doorbell rang. The two looked at each other in surprise. No one they knew would ever call this early in the morning on a Saturday.
"I'll get it," Finn finally said. Watson, over his surprise, vaguely waved a spoon at her in acknowledgment.
"Err, Find-a-bhair Thomas?" the delivery man stuttered.
"What can I do for you?" Finn was used to the general mockery made of her name by most people.
"You have a package."
"I never would have guessed that." No one said she had to be nice and understanding about it though.
"Nice day to you too lady."
Watson did a double take when his granddaughter walked back into the room.
"Who's that from?"
"No idea." Finn grabbed a kitchen knife and sliced the box open relatively quickly and with worrisome good technique. Opening the flaps, Finn and Watson were hit with feeble light from at least 10 flashlights.
"What the?" uttered Watson while Finn grabbed the letter taped to the box.
"Here's the sun after the storm. Ginny."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know, but she's not trying to kill me. I'm going to take it as a good sign."
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"Alright, what do we think?" demanded Kia, youngest son of the O'Connelly offspring, directing this question at his older brothers sitting in his living room. Five blank stares answered him back, "My thoughts exactly." All of Sparrow's brothers had got together for breakfast in hopes of figuring out a solution to the current crisis rocking the family.
"Should we just lock them into a room and force them to talk it out?" Five stares of disbelief answered Jay. "Yes, you're right that would make it much worse." Subdued, Jay took a bite out of his banana.
"Well, what would Dad do? He was the one that always fixed things between Sparrow and Mother in the past." Kia had always been the most practical of his brothers.
Riiinnnggg!
Six men in various food consumption related poses stopped and stared at the ringing phone wondering if perhaps their father had heard them from the great beyond and was giving them a call RIGHT NOW to tell them exactly what to do. Tentatively, Kia picked up the phone.
"WHAT?" soon followed.
"She did what!" cried Lark a few minutes later.
"What exactly did she say?" broke in Robin.
"She was happy that Mother was out of her life and Mac's," answered Kia.
"Well. It's done, I suppose. This can't be fixed." Crane sighed and disheartened ate a strawberry.
"No, it can't," agreed Crane.
"Sparrow is no longer our sister." There was a stunned silence for a moment before Jay broke it with a question that merely produced more silence.
"What about Raven and Mac?"
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Earnest was eating a late lunch while reading over a speech when he was interrupted by the arrival of Mac at his door.
"I forgot to thank you for taking Ginny yesterday,"
"Don't worry about it." He turned back to the screen.
"You got on her good side," she continued after a short pause.
"Huh?" he looked up briefly.
"That's nearly impossible to do."
"Oh, well, I liked her too." He hit a button on the keyboard.
"Good." Mac turned to leave but before she had passed the doorway, Earnest called out to her.
"My toes are healing nicely by the way. Did you have to use metal?"
"Well, you are very thick sometimes Earnest," Mac responded in surprise. Was he actually showing a sense of humor?
"And you're plainly mean sometimes." That comment caused her to quickly turn around. There was Earnest in his typical fashion typing away on his computer, but instead of the usual serious expression on his face, he wore, instead, a small little smile.
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Sparrow furiously scrubbed at the dirty pots submerged in soapy water and bits of swollen pieces of food in her sink. Sparrow was so mad her eye was twitching and her knuckles clasped around the scrubber were completely white.
Charlie, leaning against the door frame, watched her. He wasn't quite sure what to do.
"What are you looking at?" snapped Sparrow finally. Her voice sounded tired and irritated. Throwing the scrubber into the murky water, she turned and faced Charlie.
"What happened at your mother's?" he asked taking a seat at the kitchen table.
"Nothing of importance and I don't want to talk about it."
"That's new; normally you can't wait to tell me what your mother has done." He smiled feebly at her. Sparrow didn't return it.
"Yah, well you didn't treat me like something that was going to crack at the slightest sign of trouble then. Unlike now."
"Sparrow-"
"Save it Charlie. I don't want to hear it right now," she said quietly. Grabbing a dishrag she dried her hands.
"Sparrow, I'm sorry."
"Fine."
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Pretty much."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know anymore Charlie. I wasn't the one to pull away. That was you."
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Ginny looked at the package in front of her with wonder. The entire box was a bright almost neon yellow and about as tall as she was. Curious, Ginny took her scissors and dragged the sharp edge across the tape in the crack between the lids of the box. As soon as the last bit of tape had been cut, the contents of the box spilled onto the little girl, burying her up till her knees. Ginny found herself trying to wade through hundreds of thousands of yellow macaroni noodles.
Here's returning the favor. Finn.
A/N Alright, sorry about the long update. I was hit with a nasty cold and wrote most of this chapter high off extra strength Tylenol flu. I kind a wanted to proof read it before I posted it for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, as you can probably tell from the stilted conversations and lack of a lot of description, that the Tylenol heavily influenced the chapter. I tried to improve it with mixed results.
Stargirlie: Thanks for the review! I'm giving you twice the exclamation points since I put none in my last response! Yah, okay I don't know, perhaps the Tylenol hasn't quite cleared the system.
Siliana: I wish you'd awwwed all the way. Oh well. Hopefully you'll keep reading and I'll get you later. Not this chapter though.
Lisa: Yah, you came back! I'm glad you like my conversations. I love writing them (even if lack of updates seems to dispute the fact).