Chapter Five

Mac removed the bandana that he had tied around his hair. Crossing his arms, he examined the dining room table that extended out before him. Crisp, white nice tablecloth set for tonight? Check. Absolutely amazing painstakingly made dinner? Also a check. All that was left was for a few helping hands to set the table and then that would be a check as well.

With the checkered bandana he wiped off the sweat that was caused from steam rising on his face, and he raced up the stairs into his bedroom. Satisfaction seemed to seep through every one of his pores (of course that could have also been the sweat) and it seemed to give him a boost of confidence.

He quickly changed out of his red t-shirt into a button up white polo and a pair of khaki pants, which he equipped with a nice belt. He fussed with his hair which had become messy, and applied more cologne to his neck.

"Hey. Can Denise and Reggy come over for dinner tonight?"

"Well… I'd have to think about it."

"Uh, well, they're here."

Mac's eyes widened and then he heard Denise's shrill shriek of laughter behind him. Her arms threw themselves around his neck and pulled him in close for a hug.

"Did ya miss me, Mac Attack?"

"Denise! Wow, what a surprise." Denise always had a habit and love for all things spontaneous… and more than not, inconvenient.

Denise released him from her grip. She had curled her deliciously blonde hair all messily, and it framed her heart shaped face. Beside Bloo, in the doorway, stood Reggy, her imaginary friend and also her self-proclaimed but not legal husband. He was a fish like man, with scales the color of a burgundy.

"I brought Jette over too," Denise said, rubbing Mac's arm. "She went to go and hang out with Junior and Ronnie in his room."

"Oh okay. Cool." Mac nodded in an easy going manner. "Yeah, well, dinner should be ready pretty quick."

He nodded to Reggy and Bloo. "You guys head on down. We'll catch up in a minute."

Bloo and Reggy agreed and obediently trailed down the stairs in search of hot food like a pair of sheep. Mac rushed forward and shut the door.

"Oh my God, Denise, you have no idea how happy I am to have you back!"

"Aww. Did you miss me that much? I'll have you know I'm a married woman," Denise said sarcastically, but she was giggling all the same.

"No, Dee, things have gotten so screwed up."

Denise blinked. "What? I was only gone for a few weeks, Mac. How could things have fallen apart so quickly?"

Mac sat down on the bed beside her as she pulled out a nail file and started to do her nails.

"Well go ahead sugar. Tell me everything."

He then started on the long explanation of where his anxieties had started: with Frankie leaving with Vince and her kids to go visit her in laws. Then he brought up the conversations that he had had with Bloo, and then finally his parents.

"Your mother? And your dad?" Denise shrieked softly. "You're kidding me, right?"

"No I am not." Mac shook his head. He sighed. "It's just been so stressful, Dee. I feel like I'm treading in water and I'm up to my chin. I'm going to be so glad when Frankie's back. Maybe then I'll feel like things will be back to normal."

"Oh Mac, maybe this isn't going to be as bad as you think it will be." She patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Besides, this should be a happy time for you! Another baby? That's so great! Sweetie, you're in your mid thirties. This is like, one of your last chances to have a baby before you're as old as a fart."

Mac chuckled. "Oh my God. I'm thirty four."

"Yes honey. Welcome to reality."

She opened the door. "Now get your toochus downstairs. I think I heard the door bell ring."

Mac started to head out the door and Denise arched a brow at him.

"Put your game face on, baby!"

Mac found that Margaret and Gary had just arrived. Both were casually removing their jackets, looking out of place. Dinner hour was the most intense rush hour of the house: imaginary friends of all shapes, sizes and colors were dashing by them down the hallway in a flourish. Bewildered, Mac saw his parents stand there erect, looking slightly terrified at all that was going on. Wilt, who had been the one to open the door for them, took their coats and soothingly tried to coax them.

"Margaret, Gary," Mac said as he descended the stairs with Denise. "Hello."

Both nodded to their son. Just then Junior came stampeding down the stairs with Ronnie and Jette. Ronnie was awkwardly trying to pull his backpack on as he hurried to the door.

"Hey Dad," Junior called out.

"Hello," Mac answered, turning around to face them. "Ronnie, are you going to be staying for dinner tonight?"

"Sorry, Mr. E," Ronnie said, "but my mom said that I had to be home for dinner tonight because I got to watch my little brother and sister. But I'll take a rain check!"

"Any time, Ronnie." Mac smiled. "Thanks for coming over."

"Thanks for having me!" Ronnie called out over his shoulder as he headed out the door. "See you at school tomorrow Junior!"

"See you," Junior responded, and he seemed to be grumbling.

Mac cast a curious look at his son, but made note of it to talk to him later. He addressed his parents once more and with all of them together, guided them into the dining hall. Most of them had taken their seats. Frankie's seat at the head of the table had respectfully remained empty. The big chandelier had been lit and was dimmed for a suitable dinner hour. Mac found his seat next to Bloo, who was sitting by Ronnie. Junior took his seat next to Mac, and Mac's parents humbly sat down next to their grandson. Jette removed a chair and forcefully squeezed in beside Junior, while Denise snuggled up next to Reggy.

Then the food started to be passed around. Tonight was casserole night, where Mac combined most of the leftovers into an edible casserole, and then served it with some other things: soups, chili, bowls full of fruits and vegetables. Everything was pleasantly arranged and looked as neat as he had left it.

Bloo of course helped himself first to a portion and then ladled Mac out an equally hefty portion. Mac rolled his eyes and passed the bowl to Junior, who begrudgingly put some of the yellow-white casserole on his plate. He then piled on the veggies and fruits and sipped from a glass of water that he had while listening to Jette jabber on and on.

The friends began to eat and the dining hall was filled with loud incessant chatter. It usually dulled down halfway through the meal, enough so that one could have a decent conversation with another person.

"Well Mac, I'm impressed," Margaret commented to her son. "You have to feed all of these friends?"

"Each and every one of them," Mac answered as he gulped down some of his water. "It takes like, an hour and a half to prepare dinner every night."

"And the dishes must be an atrocious job to do…"

"Well, I've got friends that help me out with that."

Gary chewed on some of the casserole and nodded appreciatively. He looked at his son. "This is a damn good casserole."

"Wow. Um, thanks," Mac said, smiling thinly.

Bloo reached under the table and gave Mac's knee a squeeze. Mac smiled and looked at Bloo directly as if to let him know that he was calm.

"Whatever happened to working as a social worker?"

"A social worker?" Junior chimed in. "Dad has never been a social worker."

"Yes I was," Mac said. "When you were a bab…" he abruptly stopped himself and smiled nervously. "I mean, you must have been too little to remember."

"I was a baby, you mean?" Junior arched a brow quizzically and gazed at his father dryly.

Margaret frowned. "A baby?"

Denise and Reggy both looked at Mac with concern. Mac felt his heart thud against his chest.

"Yes. Well, a baby." Mac tensely halved some of his casserole with a fork. "Yeah."

"You're acting really weird, Dad," Junior muttered underneath his breath in a low voice, grabbing a sautéed apple with his fork and biting into it.

"A baby?" Margaret exclaimed. "You mean to tell me that he aged?"

"Bloo has aged too, Mother," Mac said, looking up at her. "I can't believe you haven't noticed it.'

"What? But he's a blob and he's blue. The same as always."

"He's gotten taller. Like, way taller."

"Oh," Margaret said, surprise sinking into her voice. "Oh, now I see! How odd."

Bloo chuckled at the tone of her voice. "How odd."Yes, how odd of me to age.

"Anyway," Mac said sharply, changing the subject, "when I came back to the United States with Junior, I got a job as a social worker for a middle school, which I stuck with for a couple of years until taking care of the house had to become my number one priority."

"And why was that?"

"The President of the house… Mr. Herriman, he was getting sicker and sicker the older that he got. Frankie needed someone to help her out with the chores on a more day to day basis rather than weekends."

"So you own the house?"

"Uh, yes, technically. Madame Foster included me in her will, so I own half of the house and the fortune." Mac ruffled Junior's hair and smiled proudly. "And one day this kid will have it too."

Margaret lowered her eyelids coolly and patted her mouth with a napkin. "That is, if you can get a lawyer to arrange that for you."

Mac restrained himself by smiling as broadly as he could and continued to eat his dinner. Gary made occasional comments about how good the food was. Inside his head Mac was surveying the scene and just pacing back and forth.

Okay, Mac said halfway through the meal, once friendly conversations had picked up, so we can be relatively civil to each other. But it's such a delicate situation. I'm dancing around the topic of my pregnancy as fast as I can, and yet I can't get away from it.

Mac suddenly then belched and he placed a hand over his mouth, bewildered by the sound that he had made.

"Uh, I'm sorry, excuse me."

Everyone who had been staring at him cracked up. They hooted with laughter and Mac's cheeks burned with embarrassment, but he was still calm. It was at that moment when the rest of the evening began to go smoothly. There were no biting questions or arm-twisting remarks; no need to dance around anything. The invisible walls that had separated Mac from his parents were now, brick by brick, slowly being broken down into something accessible.

When dinner ended Mac rounded up a couple of the friends, as well as Junior and Jette, and got them to pick up the dishes and carry them into the kitchen. Wilt, being the ever so helpful friend that he was, offered to help clean up the dishes and Eduardo assisted him. Junior and Jette then took off to do whatever.

Mac then guided his parents and friends into the clock parlor, where they sat and chatted and continued to be docile towards one another. Mac noticed that his mother was sitting close to his father in an almost overly friendly manner. It seemed that while they were still divorced, she had an attachment of a sort to him. First, Mac thought that was nice…

And then he realized again that his mother was dying.

His mother's laughter drew him out of his thoughts and he jerked his head up to see her. She ran a hand over her grazed hair and laughed some more. Like her personality, her laugh was an assertive one: loud and commanding of others' attention.

"Mac, though, honestly…" she said, trying to control herself as she smoothed out her skirt, "what is the story behind Junior?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean," she said, looking at her son with an unknowing expression, "you always seem to dance around the topic of him. What's going on there?"

She was still smiling, still good natured. He could tell she didn't suspect anything much more than one day, he had imagined his son. If it had only been that simple!

"Um…" Mac began, but faltered as his palms started to sweat. He could feel the eyes of Denise, Reggy and Bloo on him as he started to ease into honesty.

"I left for Europe, and shortly after, found out that I was pregnant."

Bloo threw his hands up in the air and Denise gasped loudly, clapping a hand over her mouth. The truth was like dropping a bomb in the center of the room. But after she asked her question, he couldn't just dance around it some more. She would figure out the truth eventually…

Margaret frowned. "What do you mean, 'pregnant?'"

"Yeah, Mom. I got pregnant. It was a total accident."

She threw back her head and laughed outrageously. Mac swallowed then, his heart growing cold. Was she serious? She should have known that he wasn't the type to kid about such serious things. But Gary seemed to see through what he was saying, and was grasping the truth of it. He looked absolutely petrified. Margaret caught on that no one was laughing with her, and perplexed, she glanced over at her son. Mac's eyes were focused on the floor and he was refusing to make eye contact with her.

"Mac." Her voice now trembled slightly as she spoke. "What do you mean, pregnant?"

"That's what Ronnie was saying. There's p-pictures."

"Mac," Denise hissed worriedly, leaning forward to stare at her friend. She shook her head repeatedly. "Mac, you shouldn't have to do this."

Mac stood up and went over to a wardrobe in the corner of the room. He opened one of the drawers by pulling on the loose knobs and drawing them forward, rusty wheels squeaking as he did so. He withdrew the album that he had the pictures contained in, and then approached his mother. He extended the album to her firmly and she took it. Margaret was slightly horrified as she opened the cover and probably saw a picture of him with a solidly round belly.

"How…?"

"We don't really know what happened, Mom. They think I could have imagined a little bit of it, and then my body just… responded to my thoughts. I was diagnosed at around three months along, and I had been gaining weight and having morning sickness…"

She raised her head. "Did you call me 'Mom?'"

Mac swallowed. "I suppose I did."

She lowered her head and began flipping through the pages again, shaking her head in disbelief. She pressed her fingers to her temples and massaged them.

"So… I carried Junior till I was six months along and then they did a C-section and took him out. They put him in a… well, actually I don't know what it was. But they finished growing him and then removed him from it, and gave me my baby."

"Such sci… fi…" his mother grumbled.

"What?"

"Sci fi bullshit," she snapped in a dark, hard tone.

"Well, it happened. And we tested his genetics: he's not an imaginary friend. He's got parents: me and Bloo."

"Way to drop the shit bomb Mac," Bloo said, giving him a thumbs up.

"I couldn't just keep lying," Mac told him. "I mean, come on, I was already pretty suspicious…"

"This is impossible."

"It's really not, Mrs. E," Denise offered, raising her hand. "Reggy and I, we conceived her. She's our baby. 'Course, I had a more orthodox pregnancy than Mac's."

A silence fell over the room. Margaret appeared to be fuming. Gary just sat there stupidly, with an empty look in his eyes. The petrified expression had now melted away.

"Mom." Mac said quietly, focusing on his mother. "Mom, this is my life. This is what's happening, and what has happened. Mom, you had to know, if you want to be in my life."

"By the laws of God and nature, that child should not even be alive," she cried out, lurching to her feet.

"Mom!"

Emotionally she glared at her son. "I knew this whole relationship that you had with Bloo was sick! Sick and twisted!"

"Margaret," Gary said firmly, standing up and grabbing her arm. "Margaret, that's enough."

"No!" Margaret screamed then. "I had warned him about this! I knew that this was unnatural! But you went along with it and had a bastard child!"

"A bastard child?" Mac cried out, narrowing his eyes. "Is that what you're really upset about? That we had a baby out of wedlock? I never knew you were such a so called religious-"

"The whole thing! I'm upset about the whole thing!"

Mac swallowed. "I could have aborted him. I could have very well done it. But I didn't want to, Mom. Because…" Mac rubbed his arm, self conscious. "…I loved Bloo. And as I loved Bloo, I loved this baby. I love my son."

"Oh my God," Margaret said, disgusted. "He's a freak of nature."

Mac narrowed his eyes and stood on his feet. Anger trembled in his body. "I gave you what you wanted, Mom. I gave you the truth. I told you what had happened to me, and you can't throw that back at me. You can reject me, and hell, you can even reject Bloo all you want, but I'll be damned if I let that happen to my son."

"He's unnatural—"

"—He is my son!" Mac screamed at her now. "And if you are going to stand here in my house and say that he is unnatural and a freak, then I'm going to kick you out!"

"Oh believe me," Margaret snarled, "I'm done with the freak show. I've had about as much as I could stomach."

The disturbed little party moved back out to the foyer. A few imaginary friends had gathered around to watch the showdown. Wilt stood nervously by the coat stand.

"I guess I was wrong," Margaret said as she snatched her coat, not allowing Wilt to help her. "I don't know what I was thinking in coming here. You're just as screwed up as your brother, except instead of doing drugs and getting thrown in the slammer, you are gay, and get pregnant."

"Who is to blame for that, Mom?" Mac said softly.

"Maybe I should have just never been a mother," she responded venomously.

"You know, maybe you shouldn't have been. You kept talking to me about acceptance and love and forming a bond with me, but…" the tears flooded in Mac's eyes. "Whenever I'm around you I'm always rejected. I didn't need you to say it to me now, or slam a door in my face, I had always known that your love for me came conditionally. So to both of you, congratulations, because I'm done."

Gary looked at his son with wide concerned eyes. "Mac—"

"No! I don't want to deal with it anymore. I've swallowed as much of it as I can."

Hurt, Gary allowed Wilt to hand him down his coat. Margaret had already stomped out the door and fled for the hills. Gary took one last look at his son before he plunged out into the inky night. The door slammed shut and Mac buckle underneath him. Bloo grabbed him just before he hit the floor.

"Mac!"