Twisted Smiles

XI

"Are you going to tell me why you need that medication?" he asked.

"It's a long story..."

"I'm in no hurry," he declared smoothly.

I sighed. I wasn't going to get out of this the easy way, I assumed.

"Well, my dad fell off the roof on the building he was working on one day and nearly broke his spinal cord. The fall left him paraplegic from the waist down, but of course other collateral damages had to come along with it." I paused and took a deep breath. "He's constantly dosed in medication so that he won't be consumed by pain... or at least feel the minimum possible."

"I see..." he pondered what he heard for a bit. "What did your dad use to work with?"

"He was a construction worker."

"Makes sense," he half-smiled. "I have an uncle that's a constructor worker. My aunt keeps complaining at how often he comes home looking like he'd been run over by a truck."

I smiled. It must be nice to have a big family... like uncles and aunts and cousins. I don't know what that's like, but I can imagine Nathan growing up surrounded by people who loved him.

He pulled me out of my thoughts, "but the drugs aren't for pain, even the strongest."

"Yeah, you're right; that's not the reason for those drugs, though. After my mom passed away he withdrew to cigarettes and alcohol. Hence the reason he ended up falling off a building in the first place. He could never stand right anymore, or stay sober, for that matter," I sneered, rolling my eyes. "The abuse in alcohol ended up giving him a hemorrhagic stroke. He got lucky it didn't affect his cerebrum... yet. The doctors said it came very close."

"The what?" he asked, dumb-faced.

"The cerebrum - it's the part of the brain that corresponds for our senses, our emotions and our abilities to think, read, talk, learn, etc," I explained.

"That must've been very hard for you," he pondered, "to have to take care of the house and your father."

"It used to be worse, before we had Osana – things were much worse."

"Who's Osana?"

"She's an elderly lady who volunteered to help my dad and I in exchange of a comfortable place to live and food to eat. She gets pretty picky sometimes, but what old person isn't, right?" He nodded in agreement and I continued, "I mean, she's not that old, she's around sixty something, but according to her, she has no better place to be," I chuckled. "She says her children are 'all grown up and rightfully raised'. All three are men and they're all much older than either of us – the youngest is twenty-seven, if I'm not mistaken, and the other two are married and even have their own kids. I never met any of them. She said she needed to find another purpose to keep living because her sons didn't need her anymore and it was either helping us or going to a senior home." I shook my head and clenched the staring wheel. "I think that's such a coward attitude, you know?"

"What, exactly?" he interjected.

I looked at him menacingly, "sending your parents to a senior house when they're too old and a vulnerability in your life. What kind of monsters do that? I could never imagine my dad in a senior house, no matter how much shit he's done."

Nathan bobbed his head lost in thought, his eyes on the road again. He kept quiet for a long time.

"Tell me about your family," I pleaded.

"There's nothing to say."

"Oh, come on! There must be something?"

"No."