Schrodinger's Dinner

The image of the perfect, or near perfect, family dinner was not far from your mind as you finally relented. "Okay." His eyes smiled and his body relaxed, you imagined the same Rockwellian painting was in his mind as well. Part of you felt terrible that you never thought he might have been capable of change. You had assumed he didn't care about you as his son let alone you as his daughter. "Is it just gonna be us?"

"I thought it might, just for now. I want to get to know him sure but I'd rather get to catch up with my daughter first."

"...." Stunned though you were you managed a smile and a nod. It was still so strange to hear him refer to you as his daughter, but strange in a good way. Like an alligator crossing your path and leaving you twenty dollars instead of biting off your leg.

"I don't like it," Tom grumbled as he chewed on his bottom lip. "What's he want with you?"

"He's...my dad."

"Yeah, and he was an ass to you for years." A little too late Tom looked around your little hiding place you had found under the escalators to make sure no one heard him shouting.

"He's really trying though. Don't I at least owe him that much?"

"You don't owe him anything." His voice much lower now but still very much upset.

For most of his time, Tom had the perfect poker face, nothing ever rattled him save for this. You brushed the hair out of his eye, you had only just begun to pick up on his hidden expressions and the look in his eyes wasn't anger, "Baby," you let your hand linger on his cheek, "it's different okay?" He huffed in response but didn't move away from your hand. "I get you don't trust him but do you trust me?"

"You know I do."

"Then trust me when I say it'll be alright okay?"

He groaned and kissed the palm of your hand. "That's dirty pool you know."

"That's right. Girls don't play fair." You winked and smiled briefly before letting it fade. "What do you say?"

He sighed still holding your hand, "Well I can't say no now can I?"

Grasping his other cheek you pull him in for a kiss, "Good boy."

There was something odd about your home now, un-belonging and coming home washed over you as you stood in the living room. The same room your mother had thrown you out onto the street. The same room where she would sit up with you when you had bad dreams and watch tv until you fell asleep when you were younger. "You okay?" Erin placed a hand on your shoulder causing you to jump with surprise.

"I just feel like that guy's cat."

"You know, the cat who's dead and not dead, both and neither."

"Schrodinger?"

"I guess." You slowly sat on the couch, the sound of your dad swearing as he attempted to cook could be heard from the kitchen. "Should we have poison control on standby?" You asked with a smile.

"He's surprisingly good." Erin chuckled, "He says cussing the food makes it better." You join in laughing with Erin. For some reason, you thought back to your first evening with Tom and his mother. How out of place you felt. Kyle for his part acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, he had ran back into your room and hopped on your "xbone" like he normally would when waiting for your mother to fix dinner.

"Maybe that's something we have in common." You twisted the hem of your shirt nervously, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"He only recently started cooking." She sat next to you on the couch smiling.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't know. He had a lot of dumb questions and I didn't want that to come between you two."

"Like what?"

"Same thing mom asked me, only he was willing to listen. That's the difference between people who don't know and people who don't wanna know."

"Yeah...couldn't help noticing you avoided giving me an answer."

She sighed and dragged her hand across her mouth as she contemplated how to word the questions she had been shielding you from. "Obviously the big question was 'why'. I tried to explain about brain structures and all that but it didn't really help. Tried to explain saying it was about the soul of a person and not the body, that didn't really help either."

"What finally did?"

"I...had a friend of mine swap out the computer in their room for one with a different OS. Every time he'd open a program it'd open the cd player, files that were there couldn't be found and ones that weren't there before suddenly were there, clicking on any number of them just played a screaming goat."

"He didn't notice there was another computer?"

"What do you think I mean when I said my friend swapped it? It was literally the same shell." Her voice broke into chuckle fits as she went on, "He was cussin that damn thing for half an hour!" You soon joined in imagining your dad fighting with a computer.

She laid her head onto your shoulder as your laughter died once more into chuckles and then nothing, "Why are you so nice to me?"

"Cause you're my sister."

"Before you weren't."

"When?!" She sat back, shocked and angry at the accusation.

"Literally every day before you took me to the mall."

"Oh."

"Suddenly out of nowhere you started being nice and...I'm not complaining I just wondered."

"You're really asking that now?" You shrugged not knowing how to tell her if you didn't ask now you may never. "I enjoyed the times when I could dress you up and you acted like they never even happened and it pissed me off. If I had known why you were doing that I wouldn't have been so mad whenever I'd look at you. I thought for a while you were just, I don't know, enjoying dressing up at first but then you told me you couldn't remember being little or playing dress up and ...I just felt so horrible I didn't realize what had happened." Her face crumbled as she seemed to relive everything she had done to you over the years. All the time she wasted being angry and mean for no reason as her eyes began to water. How she failed in her duty to protect you so long ago.

"Hey, don't start crying or you're gonna get me going." You pulled her into your chest and slowly stroked her hair, "If it's any consolation I didn't realize what had happened either." A strangled laugh escaped as she hugged you back.

"Okay, I hope you gals are...Is everything alright?" Your dad slowed from his original jovial bounding in the room when he saw Erin drying her eyes quickly.

"Just girl talk." She informed him with a smile.

He simply nodded knowing he wasn't going to get any more information without a fight, "Well, go get Kyle."

"Yes, sir." You bounded to your room, almost excited to see your room again feeling like you were about to enter your home, the rest of the house felt communal of course but this room was your home. Standing in your room felt like entering a sanctuary, protected by all the troubles of the world. "Hey."

"Hey," Kyle answered back not turning from his game.

"Dinner's ready."

"Cool." He paused his game and ran past you, you took a moment to look around your room once more before returning to dinner.