Rage With Benefits

Chapter 30: Roots of Upbringing

Bryce's father was a strict man; constricted only to his beliefs and anything that is concerned with money, business, and reputation. Robert never showed affection to anyone, at least not in front of his two children, because he believed that 'tough love' was the A-standard process of parenting and that teaching your sons to be 'soft' and 'unmanly' was plain laughable. Bryce supposed it wasn't entirely his fault after witnessing the ways of his grandfather during the last few years of his excruciatingly long life. He was a problematic old man, with ideals he'd passed on to his son, which is why Bryce never went to any of the father-and-son golf sessions between Robert and his brother during the summers; he doesn't like sniffing the air around him.

Lydia Occonor was, to put it simply, a college professor stuck in the body of a mother. And, unfortunately for them, Bryce and Marcus were held in the huge classroom that is their upbringing. Luckily for Bryce, he hated school, and not once did he even attempt to take her lessons. She's the kind of woman who likes having perfect things at the perfect time, organized perfectly in perfect places. Her children were no exception. She'd often reprimand Marcus for spending too much time in his room playing video games when he was younger and for spending too much time in Tokyo working his job when he's older. Bryce is still trying to remember the last time she wasn't nagging on his ear for not going to boarding school in Australia like his father had wanted, but over the years, he managed to learn how to tune her out.

His parents are two very different people who found their way into each other, but to Bryce, every time he sees them on occasions that only happen like once in a winged monkey, both of them seem to morph into a one big, expressionless blob.

"You never told us you ended things with Isabelle."

Bryce's dad spoke sternly as they gathered around his grandparents' table together with his mom, his grandma Alice, and Marcus, all dressed in clothes of red and green. Alice had forced them to wear the sweaters she knitted a few months prior, to which her favorite grandson was more than happy to agree. The rest of his family, not so much.

The air smelled of hot stew, rich and stifling, nothing new. Bryce was brought back to when he was six, when the Occonors would visit the suburbs for holidays every year. The tradition only stopped when Marcus departed for board school; and the Christmas before that was the last time Alice saw his youngest grandsons until now. Bryce brought his eyes to the wall behind his father, anchoring his attention on the pictures of the remnants of his childhood. Just beside the pixelized painting of a wallflower hung the toothless smile of a three-year-old Bryce in his grandma's arms, his hands reaching for whoever was behind the camera.

"Is something wrong with the food, sweetheart?" he heard his grandma's voice, snapping Bryce out of his musing. He smiled.

Bryce might've told Ian that he wasn't too keen on coming to Wisconsin, but seeing his grandmother and tasting her bacon tortellini for the first time in years made him not help but weep, despite the fact that his father has been digging holes in the side of his neck since the moment they sat down for dinner.

"I missed this," wiping the sauce off his lips, Bryce grinned at his grandma, earning himself a raspy chuckle.

"Well not as great as your grandpa's," Alice told him, who laughed to Bryce's surprise, her crinkled eyes crinkling even more. "If he was here, he would have done flipped out on me once he saw all those raisins I used for the sauce..."

Hearing that, Marcus choked on the half-chewed pasta in his mouth, coughing like a dog. "Nan, why would you even-?"

"Oh please, you would've inhaled your entire plate if I hadn't said a thing."

Marcus chuckled, and Bryce couldn't but as well. Robert watched them, not so happy about being ignored, but he decided to go on, sealing the awkward tension on the table.