Coffee, Grit, and my Dad's Best Shoes 3.05

and here is chapter three! .05 because technically the next to parts are all one scene. it's just a really long scene. newsflash: I'm liking aunty Leanne

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Parker

The entire house smelled like salmon and lime. The old armchair I was sitting on smelled like salmon and lime. Granted, I also had my face buried in my arm with the plate of what was salmon and lime sitting right next to my head, so it probably wasn't actually the chair, but still. It smelled.

Like fish.

At least I'd choked it all back.

"Parker?" It was a squeaky little four-year-old voice, riddled with concern and trying to speak around a mouthful of food.

"Yeah Koby?" I asked, not lifting my head. If I lifted my head, I was positive that everything I'd just swallowed would come right back up again. I wasn't going to mess this up tonight.

I listened to his fork make contact with his plate, listened to him pad over until he was close enough that I could pick up that little-kid-soapy smell wafting off of him. I focused on that instead of the fish.

"Do you feel yucky?" He wiggled a hand between my arm and my forehead as he asked it, presumably checking for a fever. We'd taught him well.

I decided that it was a good idea to smile at him. So I lifted my head, clenching my jaw for a second against a sharper wave of nausea. "A little bit, I guess." I ruffled his hair with one hand, combing a few knots out of the curls with my fingertips. "I"ll be fine," I assured him.

"Oh." He paused, lifting my hand off of his head when he thought I'd fussed over it enough, and held a finger in each of his hands. "I can take your plate. And get you more water in your cup."

I watched him for a second before pulling my fingers out of his hand to give his nose a gentle pinch that, for whatever reason, made him giggle. "Okay," I murmured. "Thanks, Kobes."

He took my plate and my glass, scrambled to get his off of the floor- laminate, thank God, because he'd gotten food all over it- and scrambled to the kitchen while I stayed where I was and winced every time it looked like he was going to trip and drop everything. You couldn't see the kitchen from the living room- a hallway ran between the two- but I could hear a chair being scraped across the floor and the sink being turned on. I pushed myself up on my chair when he trotted back in with a full glass of water in his hand and a dorky smile on his face.

"Thanks," I said softly, taking the glass before he had a chance to spill or drop it, and patted my lap for him to climb up.

He snatched the remote off the floor and clambered on, wiggling around until he was leaning against my chest just right, using both hands to adjust my arm around his shoulder. He was a snuggly little kid, and I couldn't say that I minded. The extra affection was kind of uplifting.

I set my glass down on the end table beside me, making sure that I'd put it on the coaster and not the stupid, crocheted tablecloth that my aunty liked so much, and let Koby hand me the remote. I switched it to something kid-friendly and took a sip of water, and then another one, and tried to focus on something that wasn't setting Koby down and excusing myself to use the bathroom. Like his breathing. The squabbling and annoying music coming from the television set, mixed with Koby's giggles and little squirmy movements. His little squirmy movements, but not the fact that they were causing his elbows to jab me in the gut.

I probably shouldn't have had him on my knee. Just in case.

The drone of the television wore on, and I took to staring at the curtains. There was nothing spectacular about them, but grey was strongly preferred to dancing colours and spinning camera shots. At some point in my absentminded musings, the door swung open and a cheerful, How're my boys?" rang out.

Koby scrambled to sit upright, but he didn't climb down, and my eyes snapped open. "Parker made fish!" was the first thing out of his mouth as aunty swung the door shut behind her.

"Ooh, I can smell that," she said, shaking off her jacket. She looked at herself in the mirror hanging on the wall in the entry and gave her hair a ruffle with one hand. Not that she needed it. She was at least forty-three, and every strand of red was exactly the same shade it'd been when she was a kid, still full of volume, and still looked good at shoulder-length. Honestly, she looked young enough to be my sister.

"Did Parker eat any?" she asked, kicking off her boots and turning to raise her eyebrows at me. It wasn't patronizing, really, just inquisitive.

I gave her a lazy thumbs up, eyes drifting from her to the bags she'd dropped coming in. "Whatcha buy?" I asked, half for the sake of a subject change, and half because I was genuinely curious. One of the bags was from a little local shoe store, and one was from a kid's clothing store down the street from it, but I didn't recognize the third.

She scooped them up and sauntered- because Aunty Leanne never merely walked anywhere- and set all three on the coffee table. "They had a sale on at Below the Holster, and I've been in love with these boots for months. Couldn't justify buying them until today." She dug them out- a pair of burgundy leather boots with a reasonably sized heel and stitching on either side of the zippers. The kind of footwear that incredibly unique in a way that you couldn't quite place your finger on, because they basically looked the same as every other pair of boots in the world, but there was an unmistakable air of ooh-la-la about them nonetheless.

"Those are nice," I said, perking up substantially.

She beamed, lifting them for closer examination. "Aren't they? Seventy-five percent off. Oh!" She set them down, fumbling in the kid's bag. "I got these for Koby."

"For me?" It was Koby's turn to perk up, and this time, he did push my arm out of the way to scramble over to where aunty was standing.

"Mmhm. It's a knit sweater."

Koby's smile fell instantaneously. "A sweater?"

Aunty looked down at him, and he looked up at aunty, who pulled out a navy sweater set with a dress shirt tucked neatly into it. "You need something to wear to Brazil's party, I thought."

"Oh yeah." He was smiling again, like the reason justified the fact that it wasn't the toy dinosaur from Toys'R'Us that he made swoony eyes at every time we passed it. "Then I think a sweater's okay."

I pushed myself up while she knelt and held the sweater up to Koby's torso, lifting his arms, tapping his chin so he'd tip it up, and picked up one of the boots for closer examination. And no, it didn't matter how long I looked at it or how hard I stared at the floral embroidery running the full length of the zipper, I could not for the life of me figure out what was that special about them. Only that they were, indeed, very special boots. I set it back down and narrowed my eyes at the third bag.

"What's in that one? Don't recognize the logo." It was a swirly, bright blue letter K with a pair of equally bright blue, puckered lips underneath it. Definitely not one that I'd seen before. And, I mean, if I'd ever seen a logo with bright blue, puckered lips, I'd definitely remember it.

Aunty Leanne pushed herself up, resting the clothes on the coffee table, and nodded at it. If she thought that I'd missed the sly curl of her lips, she was sorely mistaken. "That, I got for you."

I looked back down at the bag, gaze slowly, slowly drifting back towards her. "You did?"

She nodded, picking it up for me when I made no move to do so myself, and held it out with a single finger hooked through the handle. "I did."

I took it warily, eyes widening when I saw what was in it. There were two eyeliner pencils- one black, one marked 'steely grey'- and two small jars of liquid liner, both a different shade of purple, complete with application brushes of varying sizes. I blinked a few times and took those out to get at what was underneath, heart squeezing, a lump forming in my throat. A pale shade of tinted chapstick and a tube of mascara were nestled in the bottom, and I think that I pulled them out and stared at them for a full five seconds before any of us said anything.

"Why'd you buy Parker makeup?" Koby was asking of course, ever the inquisitive child.

"Because," was Aunty's firm reply. She ruffled his hair. "Nothing wrong with a man who likes to add personal touches to his own face."

"Oh."

Honestly, I didn't know how he hadn't noticed the eyeliner I'd been trotting around in all week, but I was too... stunned, I suppose, to add onto the explanation. I blinked myself out of the stupor, and then blinked back an unexpected wall of tears, and whispered a hoarse, "Thanks, aunty Leanne."

"Anytime, kiddo. Got purple because it'll make your eyes pop."

I nodded, gathering it all back into my hands, and glanced sheepishly at the hall. "Mind if I test it out?"

She shook her head, patting my shoulder with a hand with red-tipped nails. "That's what I got it for. Help yourself to my nail polish, should you feel the urge." She started for the kitchen, Koby at her heels, blabbering about the puppy we'd seen in the grocery store parking lot earlier that day. Aunty told him to hold on a second and turned back to me.

"Did you cook enough for three, or should I start rooting through the cupboards now?"

"Made some for you." I usually did, but I'd been slacking this week. Actually, I'd been slacking since I started visiting Braz in the hospital. I'd made supper before leaving every afternoon and took off as soon as Aunty got back from work and ate when I got home. I figured I should probably make up for my sloppiness while she was working the later shifts and I couldn't go much of anywhere. "It's still in the warming drawer, so you shouldn't need to microwave it or anything. Salad's in the fridge."

She nodded, and I swung myself into the hall, and then into the bathroom, because it was closer than my room. And also because that's where she kept the aforementioned nail polish.