Page 40 of Meet Stan

“How are ya doing, Christian?”

“I’m trying to beat Dark Souls III,” he said stiffly. “It takes supreme concentration.”

“Well, you might not know this, but your aunt Ivy was a Ms. Pac Man champion back in the day.”

His little guy on the screen died, and he grimaced in disgust. He glared up at me.

“Geez, you’re old,” he said.

I gasped, and quicker than a hiccup my sister’s arm darted into my field of vision. She snatched the game console out of his hands.

“Hey,” he said.

“That’s what you get for having a smart mouth. Apologize to your aunt, and maybe you’ll get it back after dinner.”

“After dinner? That’s not fair.”

“I could just keep it in the glove compartment until your next birthday.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ivy,” he said snidely.

“Say it like you mean it.”

He looked up at me and got puppy dog eyes.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ivy.”

“I accept your apology. You know I’m not even thirty, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t trust anyone over thirteen.”

I sighed and gave up. I figured his apology was as much as I could hope for.

We got to mom and dad’s place on Staten Island. I watched my sister and her family make their way inside and up the steps. I wondered what it would be like to have a family. Would it be stifling, or would it feel like being wrapped in warm kittens all day long?

All I knew was, the more I spent time with her and her family the more I wondered about my feelings for Stan. Maybe it was a maternal instinct, but I began to think that, maybe, Stan might be a good father.

I shook it off, admonishing myself silently as I followed my sister and her family as they made their way up the steps to the second-floor apartment. It was a fake relationship, I reminded myself. A fake relationship. There was no reason to think such thoughts. In fact, I wanted to think of just about anything else at the moment.

Upstairs, my mother and father hugged me warmly, cheerful smiles on their faces. I’d developed a habit of late with my father, where I carefully checked his face and eyes for signs of infirmity. He was losing weight, which I knew was supposed to be a good thing.

Yet, I looked at him and couldn’t help but feel as if he was becoming diminished, somehow. All of my memories of my father were of this big, burly man. Sound of body and mind, tougher than a two-dollar steak, as he was fond of saying.

Now he looked old, and frail, and it reinforced to me once again how important it was that I see the whole fake relationship thing with Stan through to the bitter end. No matter how awkward, or even painful, things got, I had to stick it out. I had to stick it out for my family.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked, his smile fading. I guess my anxiety was written large all over my face.

“Nothing, I’m just a little winded,” I said.

“You don’t’ look like you got much sleep.” My mother came to me and turned my face this way and that.

“Mom, come on,” I said “I’m a grown-ass adult, quit inspecting me like a child.”

“Have you considered adding a teaspoon of cod liver oil to your diet?” She asked. “Three times a day, it will help you flush all those impurities that give you bags under your eyes.”

I covered my face with my hand.

“Are you kidding me, Mom? I just didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all. I don’t need to take cod liver oil.”

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