Fic: Childhood Memories
There isn’t much that he remembers from the early part of his childhood, except for he was happy. The family consisting father, mother, and child weren’t the richest in Rhode Island- but it never seemed to matter much. They were close knit and he never felt poor, even at Christmas when friends were boasting giant gifts.
His father, Jeremy, was a hard working man who was heading the new construction that was coming up due to surplus population. He was good at his job and actually enjoyed building things; making sure everything was built to specification and safe.
His mother, Samantha, got paid a small salary for being the secretary at a small law office in town. She was always home to make dinner for the two of them, unless his father was working late or had to leave early for the night shift. He didn’t get to see his father much, but the time they spent together was well worth the wait.
His fondest memory, however, was the cards.
“Alright Nicky, you’re a growing boy and need to learn how to play a man’s game. You want to learn, don’t ya?” The giant goofy grin that seemed to be patented by his father was in place. He was shifting the old deck of cards like an old pro; at that point Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if he was.
“Yeah!” the seven-year-old said, eyes lit with an eagerness to learn something new; especially from the guy that meant the world to him.
“Of course you do! Alright so I’m going to teach you a game called poker, alright? The rules aren’t that hard to grasp- it’s the matching that is the hard part.” He laid down a few cards in a straight line, each one different, and pointed to them. “You know why these all lined up are important?”
Nick stared at them long and hard, “Ummm… they’re all the same color?”
His father grinned at him. “Right! They are all hearts or the highest grade. This is called a royal flush and is the singularly most important thing you can get in your hand. Now tell me…” he put down a few more cards. It went that way for a while, putting down different combinations and explaining which one was better than the other and why. Nick didn’t get it at first, but more than a few training exercises in the world of poker happened at the kitchen table.
The next part of betting and counting, using jelly beans and gummy bears as tokens or counters as his father liked to put it. Most importantly, though, was the art of bluffing. Jeremy didn’t like to brag, but he was a darn good bluffer and he passed those skills onto his son. “Now you best remember that lying is a terrible terrible thing to do, especially against your mother. In cards, however, it’s fine because it’s just part of the game.” Nick nodded eagerly as he was taught.
Within the coming year they branched out and started on the variations and other games such as blackjack. They would play some before dinner and eat their spoils of candy as a desert, even if more often then not they shared their winnings with one another after the meal.
“Nicholas, this man ain’t making a betting man out of you is he?” His mother would usually say as she finished up cooking and shooed them away from the kitchen table so she could put dinner down for the evening.
“Aw come on Sammy, might as well be his old man that teaches him now! Plus Nicky likes to play cards with me.” He turned to his son, smiling. “Right, sport?”
“Yeah Mom, why are you against playing cards?”
“I’m not against cards, it’s just some people take them too seriously out west. Oh well, come on its dinner for the both of you.” She placed the dishes down and was smiling at the two of them. She loved her boys; she really did, and sometimes wished she could do better by them. Nicholas didn’t have all the same things his schoolmates did and finances had always been a problem in the household- even with both of them working. She felt grateful, though, that her husband loved the both of them and worked hard to get them by.
As Samantha was cleaning up the dishes Jeremy gave her a kiss and patted Nick on the head before heading off to work. He was at night shift again and barely had time to eat with them, but he did even if it made him late.
That was the night of the accident. One of the cables snapped and a metal beam crushed Jeremy’s spine. The doctors said it was instantaneous; at least his death wasn’t painful. Sam’s heart broke when she heard her husband was dead. Nick spent a lot of time trying to be strong for her. It was a lot of burden on the eight-year-old’s shoulders.
At the funeral a man that Nick had never met came by. He was wearing a slick black suit and expensive looking glasses. He had never thought glasses could even look expensive, but he was proven wrong. His mother apparently knew him, though, and introduced him as Mr. Cardell.
“He’s an old friend of mine, sweetie, we went to the same college together before I met your father. He’s a nice man, you can say hi.” And he did, even if it was said with some uncertainty.
He ended up seeing a lot of Mr. Cardell from then on; he was always hanging around his mother and talking to her. Months passed and unfortunately he was a constant in them. He would greet Nick, but only because it was seemingly mandatory. He was over for dinner that night when Nick’s life got flipped upside once again.
“Sammy.” Nick hated when he called his mother that, it was like nails running down a chalkboard. His father always called her that; he had no right to do it, but his mother staid silent about it so he, begrudgingly, did also. “There is something important I need to ask you.”
There was a silence and his mother nodded in consent for him to start talking.
“I know that your husband’s accident was only six months ago but I was wondering… would you marry me?” He got down on one knee and opened up a tiny box that held a band much more extravagant then the one that was already on her finger. It was the ring that Jeremy would have loved to have given her if he ever could afford it.
“I…I…” Sam stuttered, eyes wide looking down at the box. Cardell’s hand slipped off the simple golden band that was on her finger and pushed on the one endowed with diamonds.
“I’m not looking to replace him, but I could give you a new life! You wouldn’t have to worry about the bills and even,” he paused and seemed to choke on the next part of what he was saying, “your son would have everything he would need.”
Nick finally was pushed out of his stupor and angrily came over toward the man who was proposing to his mother. “No!” he said and grabbed the simple wedding band that this man had stolen from his mother and clenched it in his fist. He didn’t know what to say, or do, so he just screamed the same word again and stormed off into his bedroom.
That was when Sam came out of her shock. “Nick, Nicholas!” she called and left Cardell kneeling on the floor to go after her child. She knocked on the door desperately, “Sweetie, please come out. Let us talk about this.” She tried to ignore the soft sobbing on the other side.
The wedding day was the worst of Nick’s short life. It was the day that him and his mother had been taken away from Rhode Island and forced to move to Texas. Everything was different there and he didn’t like it. He also hated the fact some distant cousin got to be the ring bearer for the ceremony. Cardell had convinced Samantha not to let Nick do it because he was liable to run off with the wedding bands: at least in that assumption he was correct.
The black suit he was wearing matched his feelings perfectly, he felt more like a mourner than someone celebrating. Here he was in the beautiful garden that was behind his new mansion sized home watching his loving mother marry the devil. If he had to wear a black suit for this, then he never wanted to wear another one again.
It was Christmas, and he didn’t care that the pile of presents was much bigger than the years prior.
It was 70 degrees outside.
“Sweetie, you are alright? Aren’t you going to open your presents?” He mother asked, coming up from behind him and wrapping him in her warm arms. Her nightgowns were silk now, more expensive to the touch and too expensive for his taste. Nick liked the soft cotton ones she used to have better.
“There isn’t snow.” Was all he said, looking at the sky that was reflecting an annoyingly pretty clear blue back at him. He liked the murky colors the sky made when it was raining or snowing, there wasn’t much of that here.
“Is that all that is bothering you? We didn’t always get snow back in Rhode Island either. Remember those Christmases? We still had a good time, didn’t we?” she soothed, running her hands through his hair gently.
“There was always snow on the ground when Dad was still here…”
She flinched back from him, remembering all those years when her husband made sure there was snow. He used to cut up white pieces of paper and scatter it around the tree, saying that even when there wasn’t snow on the ground outside there would always be snow on Christmas morning.
“Mom!” Nick came into the house annoyed beyond all reason after his first day of school. “Can we go home? I hate it here! They made fun of my clothing, my accent, and even what I brought for lunch today. I know that I’m nine but these idiots-”
“Nicholas I’m surprised by you! What did I say about calling others that?” she chastised.
“Not to?”
“Indeed! Now you look so cute in your slacks and new button up shirt, the other kids are just jealous. Your father was good enough to get you into a good school and buy you good clothing. Now I won’t hear another word about leaving.” She said sternly.
“He isn’t my father and I hate the South!” Nick yelled and stormed upstairs.
Nick never got over calling Mr. Cardell by his name, and especially never by the word father. He didn’t even acknowledge his mother by the term of the name and there was no way in hell he accepted it as his own last name. He would rather go without one then take Cardell to be his.
It wasn’t even like he acted like a father to him, anyway. He paid for anything he could ever want, sure, but that was just about it. His mother and he would go off on expensive vacations, leaving Nick at home with this nanny or that. He was neglected not only by his stepfather, who he expected to do that, but also by his mother as the years went on. The more she became Mrs. Cardell the less she became Samantha.
So Nicholas grew up and somehow survived in high school. He would bring home dates that were male more often than not, if only because his stepfather was a hardcore traditionalist and hated the idea of two men together. He would make sure that the man caught him and his boyfriend of the time in the hallway making out; just to get that horrified reaction. It wasn’t always easy finding someone bi or gay in the south… but he made due.
Even if some of them were just rebellious hick boys trying to show their family they didn’t always know what was right. He could put up with the drawl, though; sometimes it was even kind of cute.
Nick went off the college, working to get into a really expensive one just to piss off his stepfather that had to pay for it. He went back up north- the idea of staying in the south gave him hives. New York University at least seemed to be a good place to be.
He came home on holidays; even if they were uncomfortable and the only person that seemed to think him being home was a good thing was his mother. They asked him about school, he was getting along. The rest of the time was stretched and uncomfortable. He promised himself that once he was old enough and not relying on them anymore, he was never coming back to them or the south again.
For Nick’s twenty-first birthday his parents sent him a card with a plane ticket to Las Vegas, three thousand dollars, the reservation number to one of the hotels, and telling him to have a good time. Written at the bottom, hastily, was a note from his mother saying they were going to join him but his father had a business trip in Athens, Greece that they needed to attend.
He took the plane ride and the money, landing in the city of sin and determined to get smashed. It was what every other twenty-year-old did on his birthday. Heading over to the Venetian Hotel he checked in and immediately hit the casino floor looking for the bar.
Before he found one, though, he found a card table. He hadn’t really picked up a deck since his father had taught him how to play all those years ago. He stared at it for a few seconds, thinking back on all those games he had played for jelly beans and gummy bears. Instead of getting drunk right away he slid into that chair and started to play with the best of them.
It was at that point he started to wonder if there was a way to combine the luxury he had for the more recent years of his life with the happiness he had with the earlier ones.
“Yup lived here all my life! Savannah is the greatest, I tell you what! Me ‘an Keith we ran this town ragged in our youth! Golly, killed one of them neighbors cat by accident when he was just young’uns.” Ellis said, large smile on his face almost painful to look at. The drawl he had was different from those in Texas, but the effect was still there.
“That’s horrible! I was never such a horrible child.” Rochelle chimed in; giving a hard stare to anyone that may want to say otherwise to her statement.
“Uh, I’m sure you were Ro.” Ellis agreed, mainly so he wouldn’t get hit. He quickly changed the subject. “How ‘bout you, Coach?”
The man in question laughed, thinking back on his younger days. “Oh boy that was so long ago, don’t think I can remember much. Lots of family, though. Always family.” He nodded as if agreeing with himself.
“Yup family is always imp’rtant- as I always say!” His grin was still wide but then kind of went soft as he looked at the last member of their motley crew. “What ‘bout you, Nick, what were you like growing up?”
Nick thought about it for a moment before settling on, “It’s complicated.”