Chapter Text
March 2008 - Alfred.
After winter break, they spend a lot of time in English learning about families. The aim is to present a final “my life and family history” project at the end of the year.
From what Alfred’s heard from the fifth and sixth graders, the project itself is pretty open-ended. You give a ten minute presentation on you and your family, bring in a family artifact or photos, and submit a short written summary to the teacher.
The others seem stoked about it, and they spend the afternoon together on Nat’s driveway just pouring over family photos as they get ready. Alfred likes looking at other people’s photos―he likes looking at how they might’ve changed, but he also likes sharing his own.
Malika seems to have the nicest photos― there’s one of her mom and dad and her in the hospital, and she’s newly born, swaddled, wearing a knit cap. There’s a lot of dance photos, she’s deciding to bring her own dance photos and compare them with her mother’s old ones. There’s one when she’s 3, and she’s wearing a pink dress and there’s a butterfly on her finger. A man is holding her and laughing.
“That was from the Seychelles,” Malika explains. “And that’s my grandpa.”
Emil has a delightfully rustic image of his grandparents and mother and a dog, and Leon has a picture of both sets of grandparents at some important-looking family dinner. As for Alfred, he has a picture of his grandpa―the one on his dad’s side―posing at a gun range, and another of his grandma reading the bible to a younger version of his dad and his uncle Stevie. He also has a picture of his grandparents―the ones on his mother’s side―sitting together on their sofa, in their Florida home.
“I was almost named after an Einar Ebling. I don’t know who he is.” Emil says, a bin of markers and pencil crayons next to him as he colors in his poster.
“So you’d be what, Einar Thomassen? What a ridiculous name.” Natalya sneers. “I like you much better as Emil.”
“You never liked me in the first place,” Emil counters, unbothered. One eye is shut in concentration as he colors the borders around his family photos a vibrant blue. Alfred watches him color, impressed―he doesn’t miss a single spot.
“True.”
“Who’s Einar Ebling?” Leon asks Erik. He’s on the ground next to Emil, shuffling through his own family photos with one hand, twirling a long strand of hair in his fingers idly with the other. (Alfred knows that Leon’s been wanting a haircut since forever, and they nearly gave him one in the backyard the other day before Malika chickened out, said that she didn’t want his parents to get mad or whatever if they mess up his hair). Al thinks that it might be more the fact they cut his hair than whatever they might do to mess it up.
“Another math dude?” Alfred guesses. “Since your dad is a, you know, math dude. And both of you are named after math dudes.”
“No, isn’t he like, some German-American missionary?” Iryna starts thoughtfully. “I feel I should have heard that name before.”
“Alfred’s wrong. He was never named after a math dude―he was named after the Swedish television series.” Erik says, smirking. “Emil i Lønneberget.”
“Erik,” Emil says, sitting up almost immediately. “I was not.”
“He even looks like him, look.”
“No!” Emil lunges for Erik’s phone and Erik holds it above his head, but not before Alfred catches a glimpse of what looks like a very blond boy in a cap and overalls.
“He does!” Malika exclaims, wide-eyed and delighted. “I see the resemblance. It’s mostly the hair, I think.”
“He’s too smiley to be Emil,” Leon counters.
“You should listen to the opening,” Erik continues. “Come here, I’ll show you it. Emil really likes it―”
“I do not!” Emil cries, ears turning red.
“―when you sing it to him.”
“Erik!”
“You’re awfully quiet today,” Al says to Nat when the other three are crowded around Erik’s phone later, chattering excitedly at him.
The conversation went from what-they-almost-got-named (apparently Malika’s parents wanted to name her after some 80s Gospel singer) to Icelandic naming conventions (“―so like, how come your mom and grandparents all have different last names?”), and then from there it sloooowly drifted back to families, but not before taking a detour into the region of God-knows-what, honestly , courtesy of Erik and Leon. Malika was recalling a story about her grandparents taking them surfing in the Seychelles when Al had noticed how downright miserable Nat looked. For most of the afternoon, she just kept to herself and colored.
She’s usually quiet, which is why it took Al so long to notice, but she’s not usually looking so… sad. Sad looks out of place on Natalya’s face, Al thinks.
“What’s wrong?” Al tries.
Nat simply glares in response, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
Al figures that maybe it was because her project looked so… unfinished, at least compared to the others. Malika’s got an essay and trifold ready and a family heirloom―her grandma’s hairpin. Leon has a powerpoint (in hideous 24-pt Kurlz font) and a family album. And Emil’s poster looks very good―there were plenty of pictures of all his different family members, and he’s prepped his presentation with Erik for most of the week, apparently.
“I love your thing, dude. But like, where’s your mom on this?” Al starts, trying not to say that he thinks it looks incomplete, even if it does look to be completely devoid of mom-related stuff. There’s a section on Bill and his parents, and another one on Iryna. There’s a picture of her and Iryna visiting the Empire State Building, and Nat’s a sour-faced, short-haired toddler in a stroller. “You have one, right?”
“Everyone has a mom, dumbshit,” Nat sniffs. “Mine’s just not here at the moment, but she’ll be back.”
Al doesn’t really get that, but he doesn’t want to see Nat like this―sad, curled up near her incomplete and very barren poster, not even coloring at this point, moreso just glaring at the poster.
“You could put her on there, though, even if she’s not here,” he repeats. “She sounds like a real nice lady.”
“You think I have pictures? She left before I could talk.”
“You could put pictures of your stepmom up, too, you know,” Al says. Nat’s dad got remarried for the fourth time two years ago, and her stepmom is real nice―she taught Alfred how to sing some Disney songs in Russian earlier this week. He scoots closer―they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder now.
“I’m not putting pictures of Olga up there. She’s young enough to be our sister; it’s gross.”
Al wants to press some more, because it looks to him that Nat is still sad, but she picks up her poster and moves to the opposite corner of the driveway. He sits there for a moment, wondering if he helped or made her feel even worse, before Leon calls Alfred over because they’re looking at some of Erik’s childhood pictures and he’s splashing around on a beach with his friends, playing with a dog, holding his newly-born, crying brother, and Alfred remembers why he likes looking at people’s childhood photos.
Nat glowers at them from her corner.
If Alfred’s being really, really honest, though, he’s having a bit of trouble with this project, too.
On the one hand, it’s kind of interesting. His dad helps him dig through family pictures to find ones he can show the classroom, and Alfred both likes and is good at presentations, so he’s sure that it’ll be easy to talk about his family members. There are just a couple problems.
The first problem is Alfred’s mom, who is gone. He doesn’t know what to do about her―does he include her picture? Does he talk about his limited memory of her, or maybe get a story about her from his dad? Will other kids ask questions about her? Alfred isn’t the best at answering questions about her. She was a pilot, he knows that much. There’s a picture of her wearing a jacket and goggles, and it has Amanda Jones - Air Force Pilot written on the back in simple handwriting.
There’s another picture of her and his dad at the Marine Ball, and another where she holds a barely two-year-old Alfred in her arms and a sparkler in the other, July 4th written on the back in that same handwriting. (People who knew her always say that Alfred doesn’t really resemble her―and he agrees, kind of, but he kind of thinks she had the same smile as he does.)
Of course, then there’s the shift in pictures―where there is no Amanda anymore, and it’s just Alfred and his (vaguely exhausted, sadder-looking) dad. His grandparents from either side of the family occasionally make an appearance, and so does Alfred’s uncle, but mainly it’s just his dad and himself.
Another problem is Alfred’s grandparents, or at least, Alfred’s paternal grandparents. (Alfred learned the word paternal in English class, because of the family unit.) The situation between them is difficult to explain, to say the least.
Alfred doesn’t know the full story―mostly because his dad won’t tell him, and that’s because he’s nine-years-old, but his grandparents aren’t really… together, anymore. They’re married―Alfred knows that because they both still wear the rings―but they don’t live together, or talk to each other, nor do they particularly want to do either of those things, as far as he knows.
Grandpa Jones lives in a trailer park in Missouri as a former Army veteran taking refuge in his well-earned retirement, or at least, that’s how he describes it. Alfred’s dad sometimes grumbles and describes it as “being a deadbeat who thinks serving the country gets you everything” and “insisting that his son is a pansy for not staying in there for thirty more years.”
Alfred has positive memories involving Grandpa Jones. He remembers going out to eat whenever he stayed with his grandpa, mostly due to the fact that his grandpa couldn’t cook and Alfred was too young to go anywhere near a stove. He also remembers being rewarded with a sip from his grandpa’s can of beer if he retrieved it from the refrigerator for him. Alfred would take a sip and say ew! very loudly before handing it over to his laughing grandpa.
Grandma Jones, on the other hand, lives in a trailer park in Texas. She works full-time as a greeter at the local Wal-Mart, and is a religious fanatic, according to Alfred’s dad. She’s the one who raised Alfred’s dad, for the most part. Alfred’s memories of being at her house mostly involve being fed a lot of well made Southern food, and also being read sections from Genesis before going to sleep.
One time he stayed at her house during the final week of October―he had been seven years old―and he remembers her ranting and raving about how he shouldn’t go trick-or-treating that week because Jesus wouldn’t allow her grandson to celebrate a devil’s holiday and Lord knows your father’s a good Christian and I know he wouldn’t let you go. He also remembers his dad driving them home on the thirtieth in order to quickly buy Alfred’s Spider-man costume from Party City.
(He remembers talking to his dad on the thirty-first, while they were picking through the pillowcase of candy. “Dad, did we lie to grandma?” He had said.
“Well, I wouldn’t say we lied, kiddo. It’s just your grandma can get a little… fanatical.” Fred said, unwrapping a tootsie roll and taking a bite out of the candy. “I never got to do any of this stuff when I was a kid, so you know, I kinda wanna give you the experience.”
“Some of the church kids say that Halloween is, like, the devil’s birthday and stuff.” Alfred says, chewing on a starburst. Fred shakes his head. “Is that true?”
“Nah, lemme put it this way. The devil, as far as we know, was created, not born. So logically, he couldn’t have a birthday.” He says, before chuckling to himself, “The religious kids say that stuff because they’re upset that they don’t get to go out. Believe me, I used to be one of ‘em.”)
So there’s that complicated situation, piled up with the mom situation, and then there’s the subject of Alfred’s dad. Alfred doesn’t really know what to say about him.
And that’s weird for Alfred, because he kind of figured that out of all his family members, his dad would be the easiest to describe. After all, he actually lives with Fred, and he likes to think he knows his dad somewhat well.
That turns out to be less true than he thought, though. Alfred spends his time staring blankly at his project and trying to think, because part of it asks what his parents do for a living, and Alfred thinks, well, that’s easy, because he knows his dad’s a Marine. He’s just about to write that, too, before realizing, he hasn’t seen his dad go to work in a long time, actually. Of course, Alfred isn’t really sure what military employees do other than fight wars, but he’s pretty sure they don’t stay home all day and watch the Sunday cartoons.
“Hey, uh, dad?” Alfred approaches while his dad is making dinner. They’re having pork chops tonight. His dad is heating up the oil on the stove. “What do you… do you still work?” He asks.
“Difficult question, Junior. Stand back a bit.” Fred says, lifting a pork chop and dropping it into the pan, resulting in a splash of oil and a lot of excess popping. Fred’s a decent cook, but Alfred gets the distinct feeling that he has no idea what he’s doing.
“Dad, do you ever think you could, like, dip the pork chop in instead of just dropping it.” Alfred suggests.
“Holy shit. I mean. Shoot. That’s a good idea.” Fred says, before continuing, “Now, what were you going on about? Something about work?”
“Yeah. Uh. Do you still, like, go to work and stuff?” Alfred kind of has a hard time asking these types of questions―sometimes it feels like there’s a certain amount of distance between him and his dad. The kind that makes it awkward to ask these sort of questions with no context. “My project. I wanted to put down that you’re a marine.”
“Well, I’m a veteran, yeah? It’s just that I’m not in active service, you know?”
Alfred doesn’t know. His dad seems to realize that after a second.
“I don’t really go to any of the events, and I don’t train anymore. That’s why you don’t see your dad being shipped off to some war in the Middle East.” Fred explains, flipping over one porkchop in the pan. “I got discharged not long after your mother left us.”
‘Left us’ is the term Alfred’s dad uses to skirt around Amanda’s death. After all this time, Fred still isn’t too comfortable speaking about it outright.
“Oh.” Alfred says, eyebrows knitting together as he thinks, “That’s… weird. You never told me.”
“You never asked.” Fred replies, “Never really affected us too much, either. ‘Sides, if I hadn’t been discharged who knows where I’d be right now. I might not be here to make you dinner tonight.”
“I still don’t get why you never told me.” He says. “I mean… why did you get discharged?”
Fred hesitates. “I―” Alfred can nearly feel how uncomfortable his dad is. “I don’t talk to anyone about it, really. It’s just… I’ll tell you when you’re older, Alfred. It’s a difficult thing for a kid to understand.”
Alfred doesn’t like that explanation. Doesn’t like the idea that his father doesn’t expect Alfred to understand something he hasn’t even had explained to him. “I’m old enough.”
“No, no, you’re not.” Fred says, “It’s personal. It’s a lot of painful shit―I mean, stuff. I don’t really wanna go digging that up right now, kid. You understand, don’t you?”
Alfred doesn’t.
“Why won’t you just tell me?” He tries again, attempting to wear down his father to an explanation. He expects it to go much like any talk with his father where Alfred tries to get something, be that information or the latest toy or whatever. “I’m old enough! You never wanna tell me anything, and―and I deserve to know. How can you know I won’t understand it when you won’t even tell me and it can’t be that bad―”
Fred raises his voice. “Alfred Freedom Jones.” He breaks out Alfred’s ridiculous middle name and immediately, Al knows he’s crossed a line. “I don’t care what you think you’re entitled to know, you’re not. I am your father and you listen to me when you’re living under my roof. Do you understand the words coming out of my goddamn mouth?”
Alfred knows it’s bad when his dad cusses in front of him. He feels nervous and upset and guilty all at once, and it becomes a pool of bad feelings.
Al nods solemnly, eyes on the floor. “I understand.” He tries to ignore the tears swelling in his eyes. Babies cry and Alfred isn’t a baby anymore. “I’m sorry.”
There’s silence, and Fred sighs. “Al. I shouldn’t’ve raised my voice at you, or swore at you. You know I hate doing that sort of thing.” He says, “I guess it’s just that I… can’t talk to you about why I was discharged. Not without bringing up painful memories for myself, and I’d really like to do anything except that. Hell, I barely even talked to my own dad about it.”
Alfred looks up to see that Fred is kneeling to be at eye-level with him.
“You’re a smart kid, and I get that you wanna know everything, but there are just some things you can’t know right now.” He says, “I’ll help you more on your project, but for now let’s just focus on dinner, okay.”
Alfred nods. “Okay.”
Fred ruffles his hair, a fond smile on his face. “Okay, kiddo. I love you, you know that, right?” He says, and Alfred knows. He’s not reminded of it often―Fred has a hard time opening up to anyone, but he knows.
“I love you, too.” Alfred says, and there’s a peaceful sort of quiet, for a minute. Then the smoke alarm goes off. “Dad, the pork chops are burning.”
Dinner is a pleasant, if slightly burnt, meal. Alfred lays in bed thinking about the night preceding it. Despite it all, he likes to think he knows his dad somewhat better now. Maybe.