In late April, Jake rode home on his bicycle, after a long day at the local high school. He slowly pedaled down the street in the mid-afternoon sun.
He reached his house and went inside.
“Ma! Home!” he shouted. There was no answer, but from the sounds he heard, he figured she was standing in the kitchen washing a few dishes.
“She’s probably wearing headphones and listening to music,” he thought to himself, “I’m gonna go out back and see how Dad is doing.”
In the spring and summer, his father usually preferred to be outside in the grassy backyard. His father sat wrapped up in a woolen blanket on an outdoor chaise lounge. He started coughing violently, and bloody sputum sprayed on his chest and his lap.
Jake walked over to check on his father and discovered that the coughing finally stopped.
“You fat bastard! You coulda waited! You coulda waited!” Jake cried, falling to his knees.
His mother heard Jake’s shouting and rushed out the back door. “Jake! What is it?”.
“It’s Dad, Mama,” Jake sobbed. “It’s Dad. He just, he died, Mama. He went to sleep.”
Jake turned and saw his mother as she stepped off the back porch and began to run over to where Jake knelt by his father. She took three quick steps. Her eyelids began to flutter and she suddenly fainted and slumped down onto the lawn. Jake went to her. When he reached her, he barely recognized the young woman wearing his mother’s clothes.
“So it’s true; it isn’t a fairy tale,” he said to himself.