The Kids Grow Up, Trish Hanan [books you need to read .txt] 📗

alone,” he told them and burst into tears again. They both whined and licked his tears and he hugged them. Then with a sad sigh, Harry closed the car door softly and went into the kitchen and stared around. The house looked the same as if Jake were coming home any minute now and smile and kiss him. But he was never coming home again. His new home was with that fake tittie little bitch. Harry felt like screaming but that would have taken energy that he just didn’t have.
“Ninety-three happy years down the toilet,” he whispered and wondered how on earth he was going to live for another five minutes in this house that smelled like Jake. He took a deep breath and the God-damned house smelled like Jake. Harry decided that that simply wouldn’t do. He sat down at the table and pulled out his laptop and opened the file for houses. It took him an hour to find the right house, one owned by Phillip and Claire Montgomery and they looked snotty and pretentious, the total opposite of himself.
“Looks like its time to do a little redecorating,” Harry told the dogs, Gertie barked and Bo smiled and wagged his tail. But first Harry had to get the houses he promised and fill some stores. He decided to go ahead and fill all the damned stores; that way everyone would leave him the hell alone and he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone or listen to their shit. They’d be so busy working at their stupid stores; they wouldn’t have time to stick their noses in his business. He wondered how many of his so-called good friends had known about Jake’s affair and not told him. They all let him embarrass himself at that stupid anniversary party last year and no one told him a thing. He hated all of them.
“As for you Violet, my dear, you want Macy’s filled, I’ll fill it for you,” Harry remarked as he searched the store file and giggled. He took the dogs with him to Sherwood, making them ride in the back so they wouldn’t accidentally push the emergency eject.
Everyone was so happy when Harry delivered the stores to them that they didn’t even wonder why, they just all gushed and rushed out to stock their shelves. And the gossip mill was screaming with the news of his and Jake’s divorce and Jake and Violet’s upcoming wedding. Everyone who knew about the affair was laughing at old Harry being duped and the people of Farm One were hysterical, Harry Talbert had finally gotten his just desserts. Gloria and David threw the happy couple a big engagement party and the happy couple beamed with joy.
“Jake, Violet, I’m so happy for you, I wish you many years together and many children,” Reverend Milo gushed as he toasted the happy couple and everyone lifted their glasses of Alterian champagne and drank. Jake beamed and kissed his fiancée and Gloria giggled and hugged her best friend. It had taken Violet ten long years but she had finally done what she had set out to do, get her revenge on Harry, Mr. Smart-ass Talbert. All of Farm One was so happy they could barely contain themselves. Except for Dr. George, of course, who thought it was a damned shame that the happiest and longest marriage on the planet had come to an end and by this way. He had always known Violet needed psychiatric care and this proved it, the woman had a twisted fixation on Harry and this need to take Jake away from him was part of her dementia. He intended to stay as far away from Violet as he could.
Sissy and Dr. Jackson were the happiest people at the party, their son was finally with a woman and now all their children were straight and they could hold their heads up high with all the other parents. Of course Dwight and Pearl let them have their delusions and left the happy party as soon as they could and returned to their partners and laughed. Dwight went home to Calvin and Pearl went home to Susie and they all felt sorry for Harry and wondered how long Jake was going to fool himself into believing he wasn’t gay.
Once Harry delivered all the store bins he picked up some empty bins and parked them close to his house and flew to the Paper Product Plant and opened it up with his old key card which still worked. They must have just finished a batch of boxes because there were lots stacked neatly in the warehouse.
“This looks like exactly what I need, guys,” Harry said to the dogs that both grinned and wagged their tails. Harry was doing a lot of talking to the dogs these days since they were the only ones around. He talked to Bessie and Daisy the cows too. He loaded up a hundred each of small, medium and large boxes and put the money on the counter with a note saying what he had taken and flew home.
Then he began the hard job of packing everything up. He noticed that Jake had left eight bins of his stuff on the porch, obviously he hadn’t wanted everything, so Harry packed all of that first and marked it as Jake’s stuff and it went on the empty bin first so he wouldn’t have to see it. And, of course, he cried as he was packing it away just as he had cried when he had put it in the bins. He could have killed Jake for putting him through that for the second time, once had been hard enough.
“That selfish bastard, Gertie, Bo, he didn’t deserve you, I’m glad that bitch Violet lied about being allergic to you,” he spat and hugged them. He knew she wasn’t allergic to dogs, that was a big load of crap and Jake was really an idiot man to fall for it. But that was his problem, Harry was happy that he at least got to keep his friends and Jake didn’t get them along with his heart.
It took Harry a week to pack everything up. He put all of the pictures of Jake in a separate box; he didn’t want to look at them for a long time, maybe never. All of the pictures of the happy family portraits he put in another, he would maybe be able to look at them in a hundred years or so. All of the ones with just Jake with the kids he put in separated boxes for the kids to have, they could split them up as they liked; he never wanted to see them again. He kept all the ones with just him and his kids and kept them separate to put out in his new house. He loved his kids and wanted reminders of all of them and the happy times they had shared. The ones with Fran and the kids he put in a box to send to her. Then he moved on to the game room.
Everything got packed and put away; he didn’t keep anything of his old life except for five pairs of shorts, socks, boxers and one pair of sneakers to wear. He took all of his clothes, winter, fall, summer and spring, put them in garbage bags and took them down to the swap meet and gave them to this old Alterian lady. She tried to give him money for the stuff but he just emptied the bags, shook his head and walked away. She and her daughter seemed thrilled by the expensive well taken cared of clothing. Harry cried on the way home while his canine friends whined in the back seat.
Danny came home one day from unloading his store and saw Harry working and wandered over to see what was going on. He had been at his store for two days straight and hadn’t seen his dads; DJ had been milking his cow for him. Harry saw him and waved, he was lifting boxes to the bin and stacking them neatly on top of each other.
“Harry, what’s going on?” Danny called out as he approached. Harry grinned as best he could; he knew his youngest would be the hardest to fool.
“Just doing a little redecorating, getting tired of the old stuff, thought I needed a new look,” he told him. Danny grinned.
“I guess every hundred years or so you have to change things around or it gets boring,” he joked. He peered at his dad and frowned. “You okay, you don’t look like you’ve been sleeping?” he asked. Harry shrugged.
“I’m fine, just working too hard, you know how I get once I get started on a project, I get carried a way,” he joked. Danny grinned and patted his shoulder.
“Well, you tell Jake I said for him to slow you down some and drink some green milk, that’ll pick you up some,” he said. Harry nodded. Then he hugged his son a little too tight because Danny gave him a funny look.
“Well, you look tired yourself, kid, so why don’t you head in and let me get back to work,” Harry said and Danny nodded.
“Don’t work too late, Harry, goodnight,” he said and walked back to his house, stopping once to look back at his dad, his handsome face a little worried. Then his dogs rushed out of the house to greet him and he forgot about Harry and went inside. Harry sighed and went back to work, at least his first encounter with one of his kids was over and he didn’t break down and weep on their shoulder. He didn’t want them taking sides between him and Jake, that wouldn’t be fair to them and it wouldn’t be fair to Jake, this breakup was between the two of them and didn’t have anything to do with their children.
Violet hired an Alterian crew to unload her bins and walked around the store she had been banned from for ninety-three years and felt like doing cartwheels. Instead she twirled around the top floor over-looking the bottom and grinned.
“Its all mine, Macys is all mine and that fucking bastard Harry Talbert can’t ban me from any of his stupid stores again because he doesn’t have any left,” she exclaimed and Gloria who was with her laughed. They hugged each other and walked back to the offices.
“You should redecorate,” Gloria advised and Violet looked around the office and nodded. She noticed some dog hairs on her chair and made a face.
“He brought those dogs to the store, can you believe that?” she asked and they both laughed. Then the men started to bring things in so they decided to go to the salon and get facials and manicures for their dinner tonight to celebrate. Violet left the man in charge with the chart showing where everything went and left her precious store.
Three days later she was informed that all of the bins were emptied and the store was ready for her inspection. Excited, Violet, Gloria and David rushed to Macy’s and opened the front door. The head man, an alterian named Frank Douglas met them and frowned.
“Miss Emery, some of the stuff in the bins, we couldn’t find on this chart you left with us, so we just found a place for it,” he informed her. She frowned. Gloria smiled.
“That’s fine, Violet,