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"Dad! It's not like that!" I insisted, not believing that I hadn't noticed him standing right there. I could see the anger in his eyes.
"How is it then, Don?" Dad asked me coldly . It was the same tone he used when I was a teen and had gotten into trouble. I could see the icicles coming out of Dad's mouth.
"We've got nothing against Natalie! Right Charlie?" I turned to my baby brother for support. It felt like a deju vu from my childhood.
"Yeah! She..uh..smart... and charming" Charlie said. He used Larry's words in his desperation. Both of us thought she was weird.
"It's the age thing?" Dad's tone didn't change.
"Yeah!" I told him, then asked, to make a point. "Wasn't that one of Aunt Rach's concerns?".
"It might have been" Dad said, though I knew that this meant a yes.
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"See, Dad! We're not the only ones!" Don insisted.
"You two think I'm too old for her?" I asked coldly.
"We think that she's too young for you" Don inverted it.
"Do you feel that I'm dating her only because of her age?" Did my own sons think that I was that shallow?
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Charlie and I were saving face, by using the age thing as a scape goat; it was partly working, though Dad's last question was a mine field. In truth, we both felt that it was a major reason.
"No!" I denied it.
"Why else would you say that quote about a man being as young as the woman he feels?" Dad demanded.
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Before Don could say anything, Megan reluctantly interrupted us. Apparently, she had a new case development for him. Dad put on a neutral expression when he saw her. In a way I was relieved. Don and I had really put our feet in it. This was worse than the time we both broke mom's favorite vase that belonged to her grandmother.
"We'll continue this conversation at another time" He told us, and went through the bullpen in a huff.
Soon, Don went back to work, and I decided to return to Calsci; after waiting a few minutes of course.
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I was surprised and happy to see Alan come into the house after work, as I wasn't expecting to see him until tomorrow.
"Hey babe!" I called from the couch, as he came in carrying his shoulder bag, and with a sour face. "You okay?" I asked.
"Hard day at work" he said simply. "Difficult clients. You know how it is"
"Yeah...I've got some lasagna that Carl's wife made. Want me to warm some up?" I offered. He must be hungry.
"Nah...maybe later."
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Sometime later, as Nat and I watched T.V, I thought about what happened. How could my sons really think that I'd go out with a woman just because of her age? Natalie was smart, and had a great sense of humor. I found it easy to talk to her. Why couldn't they see that?
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Alan seemed quiet and grumpy the whole evening. I tried to ask two more times, but men will be men.
"Are you having financial problems at the firm?" I asked at one point.
"No" he shook his head.
"The clinic's doing great, and...I could help you" I told him with a hand on his shoulder.
"I promise you" He looked me in the eye. "The firm is financially stable."
Part of me worried still. Alan was oldschool in some ways and probably wouldn't want me to help him anyhow.
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That night, Don and I hung out at the house. The T.V blared.
"How are we gonna make things right with Dad?" I asked him. Don always was better at understanding and relating to him ever since we were kids.
"I guess we could apologize, tell Dad that we'll try to look past the age thing" Don sipped some beer. "And wait out the relationship."
"Then grow eyes on the back of our heads" I joked. Don laughed.
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The next day, Charlie and I surprised Dad with lunch for the three of us. He was at his desk studying some blueprints. His desk was quite neat, and had pictures of us, and Natalie.
"Surprise!" Charlie said, sounding like a little kid. "You've got lunch!"
"It's good you came" Dad said seriously. "It's about time we talked."
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"That's why we're here" Don quickly said before Dad could continue. "We both wanted to apologize"
"Really?" Dad was surprised.
"We're sorry about being shallow about the age thing." Don began. "We promise to make an effort to look past that"
"Is that right?" Dad was studying us.
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"Yeah, Dad" he told me.
I didn't know whether to believe Don. I mean, he had lied about being supportive. All this time, I was happy that he had been great about this whole thing. He seemed nice to Natalie, and even used some of his free time to help us take stuff to the new storage place. Then, I find out that he looked at her as a whim that I indulged in the recreate my youth.
"You two just changed your mind, just like that?" I doubted this change of heart.
"We promising to be uh...more supportive" Don said lamely. "For real. We'll give Natalie some slack."
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"Don and I mean it!" I insisted.
"You two seem to look at Natalie as some whim" Dad told us. I could sense the anger. "The fact that you seem to think her age is the only reason we're dating...speaks volumes" Did he realize that we didn't really like her, plain and simple? Dad continued"Either you don't think much of Natalie, or you think I'm shallow" He glared at each of us individually. At this point, he was standing up.
"Or we think that Natalie doesn't have enough in common with you, and has daddy issues" I said without thinking, having heard Megan use the term once or twice. Don looked at me.
"She does not have daddy issues! "He growled. "Besides, we spend hours talking about nothing and everything."
"Seems like we got the wrong impression, didn't we Charlie?" Don quickly asked. I knew that I had to affirm it.
"Yeah. That's it." I said.
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"I'm not one of those men who needs a younger woman!" I told them sternly. "I would have dated Natalie if she were my age! How could you two think otherwise?"
"I uh...find younger woman attractive" Charlie told me, then turned to his brother "Don't you Don?"
"Yeah..what man doesn't?" Don agreed, a little too quickly.
"We're just acknowledging that you're human" my younger son added.
"Really?"
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"Yeah!" Charlie told Dad.
"Don, everything you've told me these past weeks has been a lie!" Dad said with disappointment and anger.
"Not everything was a lie!" Charlie jumped to my defense. "Don really made an effort to be nice! Like when Natalie went to visit him at the office; he listened to her even though he was bored out of his skull, and accepted that tasteless towel!"
"Charlie! You're not helping!" I thought with a sigh.
TBC