Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [18]
By early 1972, my parents were struggling to keep their household intact. We were children and were unaware of the details; all we knew was that my dad had begun whistling all the time, and by then, it had begun to take on ominous significance. The sound of those nameless melodies, with their pitch rising and falling, was the first of the warning signs of my father’s anger that we children grew to recognize—DEFCON 1, if you will.
In DEFCON 2, mumbling would be added to the whistling and my dad would pace in circles, refusing to talk to anyone. DEFCON 3 was indicated by the actual thinning of his lips, and in DEFCON 4, his face would begin turning red. He was sometimes able to halt the eventual progression toward nuclear launch, but if he ever hit DEFCON 5—where he would curl his tongue against his bottom teeth so that his tongue protruded from his mouth, held in place with his top teeth, we kids knew our best option was one of two things: run or hide. We knew he’d be reaching for his belt, which had replaced the flyswatter as the instrument of punishment.
Those moments, while still rare, were growing more frequent. Looking back, I can’t say that I blame him. In 1963, he was a young, recently married, starving student; nine years later, he was still a starving student, only with the added responsibility of providing for a family of five. Working had slowed his education to a glacial pace, and trying to write a dissertation with the three of us using the apartment as our playground in the evenings was enough to drive anyone nuts.
My mom, on the other hand, continued to adore us unequivocally. When we tagged along with her to the store or she brought us to church, she was quick to display her pride to anyone who happened to be nearby. She had an uncanny ability to forget how rotten we were at times, but her ability to forgive was tempered by the same toughness she’d forever been instilling in us. As wild as we got, as far afield as we roamed, there was never a doubt in either my brother’s mind or mine exactly who was in charge. If mom said to be home by dinner, we were home. If she said to clean up our bedroom, we did so right away. And if we happened to make a mistake, she’d make sure that we corrected it. She also defended us like a mother bear when she felt it was merited. When a teacher slapped Micah at school, my mom stormed in that afternoon, dragging Micah and me behind her.
“If you ever slap my child again, I’ll call the police and have you arrested. You will NOT touch my child.”
On the way out, Micah and I strutted like roosters, thinking, Take that, you old bat. My mom showed you who’s boss . . .
“You’re the best, Mom,” Micah preened. My mom whirled around and brought a finger to his face.
“Don’t think for a second that I don’t know why she slapped you. You probably deserved it, and if you ever talk back to her like that again, I’ll show you what a real slap feels like.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“You know I love you, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“You know I’ll always stand up for you, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“But I’m still disappointed in you. And you’ll be grounded for this.”
Micah was grounded, but the disappointment hurt worse. We hated to disappoint her.
Despite the pressures my parents were under, my dad gradually became more comfortable with us as we grew older. At times, he would let us crawl up into his lap as he watched old horror movies on television—he absolutely loved horror movies—and we came to treasure these moments, pining for them like the exquisite morsels they were. Naturally, we became extremely knowledgeable in the proper ways to kill vampires and werewolves in the event that our family was ever confronted by such a being. My brother and I had carved a collection of wooden stakes out of Popsicle sticks, which we kept under the bed.
In ever rarer quiet moments, my dad used to play the guitar for us as well. His sound was fluid and assured, and one evening he surprised us by telling us that he’d once been in a band.
The thought