The Kids Grow Up by Trish Hanan (novel24 .TXT) 📖

and marked it with the date and put it in the box and then fixed some chicken and rice with vegetables and ate it. Then he listened to some music but that only irritated him so he sat in the chair, drank some beer and watched the sun set. The wedding was over and Jake was now officially not his and belonged to Violet, the woman he despised. Tears ran down his face and Harry wanted to throw himself into the water and swim out until he couldn’t swim anymore and let the sharks have him. And the only things preventing him from doing that sat at his feet and every once in a while looked up at him and wagged his or her tail and grinned. If he left them here alone they would die and he couldn’t do that to them, they trusted him.
“Let’s go to bed, guys, I’m tired,” Harry said with a sigh and they followed him into the tent where he checked first for tiny bugs, found several and smashed them and then crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep.


The wedding went off without a hitch. The ceremony was performed by the bride’s father, a beaming Reverend Milo whose voice rang out with pride as he joined his daughter to Jake. The happy couple beamed as they kissed and Violet looked stunning in a gown she had bought from an alterian shop. Jake was handsome in a black tux. His best man was his brother Monroe and everyone agreed the two men looked just like their dad.
All of his kids attended and were equally stunning and Jake spared no expense with the wedding. He hired an alterian caterer, an alterian band who played Memphis jazz and the alcohol flowed freely. Everyone gushed and said they were having a wonderful time. Jake, smiling and joyous came over to the kids table to check up on them.
“You kids having a good time?” he asked cheerfully and they all smiled and nodded. Jackson stood up and hugged him.
“We’re having a great time, Jake, it was a beautiful ceremony,” he told him and everyone gushed how wonderful the ceremony was. Jake beamed.
“Violet sure is beautiful isn’t she, I’m so lucky,” he gushed and Danny wondered how much he had had to drink. Violet came over and put her arm through her new husband’s and beamed at them.
“This is such a wonderful party, are you kids having a great time?” she asked in her sweet voice. They all assured her that they were. Then she looked around and pouted.
“Harry didn’t come with you?” she asked and they all looked shocked and shook their heads.
“Why would he come?” Emma asked. Violet giggled.
“We invited him because we want him and Jake to still be friends, after all, they have known each other since they’ve been kids and there’s no reason why they can’t be friends, so why shouldn’t he come to the wedding?” she asked sweetly and Danny wanted to hit her. Jake kissed her.
“Isn’t she great, she doesn’t hold a grudge or have a mean bone in her body,” he praised her and Violet blushed. Then someone called them away and they said goodbye and rushed off. All the kids looked at each other and frowned.
“I sure hope Harry left for Savannah before that invitation came and we can intercept it,” Cassie said. They waited until the happy couple flew off in their helo for Hawaii and their two week honeymoon and then rushed over to Harry’s to prevent him from seeing the message. Emma found it in the trash.
“Too late, he’s already seen it,” she announced and picked the ripped picture out. Danny sighed and looked at it. Jackson stood in the foyer and frowned.
“Hey, everyone, come look at this room,” he called and they all rushed over and gasped.
“What the hell is this?” Sean asked. They all looked surprised.
“This room isn’t Harry, this is too,” Ryan grasped for the right word. Adam found it.
“Pretentious,” he declared and they all nodded. Then they took a good look around the rest of the house and inside Harry’s closet and they didn’t like what they found.
“This house is all wrong, Harry isn’t like this at all; what is he trying to do?” Cassie asked; her face worried. Adam shrugged.
“He’s trying to make himself into an entirely different person, obviously Jake didn’t like the old Harry anymore so he’s making a new Harry,” he guessed correctly.
“Oh, man, that’s fucking sad,” Sean said and they all felt sad and they all had to get out of that house as fast as they could. Danny locked up.
The next day Harry climbed a cliff and filmed some birds feeding their young.
“Watch the mother bird feeding the little fish to her babies, isn’t that sweet, oh, what darlings, and very hungry little monsters they are. Now that’s very interesting, did you see the mouth of that little bird, he has teeth and usually birds don’t have teeth like that, how fascinating.”
On the third day Harry filmed beautiful little rainbow fishes swimming in the tide pool using the underwater lens.
“Look at these beauties, aren’t they lovely, look at the blue ones, they are so colorful, they look like they’re dancing. Those yellow ones with the fuzzy tails, I could see them on stage, they look like little ballerinas. Now this grass they’re swimming around isn’t grass at all but alive, see it moving, now look, it’s going to swim away, now, that’s very interesting. What a clever job at camouflage.”
On the fourth day Harry walked in a bit and found some colorful lizards and followed them back to their lair and filmed them there.
“Look, we’ve discovered the lizard’s home and it looks like they live all together in a lizard condo, here comes several now, let’s get the camera real close and you can see the detail on their bodies, some of them are very clever at hiding among the rocks. Can you spy them? Let’s see, there’s one over there, see him against that rock, he’s blending in, but I can see him, look, there goes Gertie to say hello, say hello Gertie.” Gertie of course barked at the lizard and it ran away.
“Guess he didn’t want to play with you today, Gertie, oh, well. Look Bo’s found one near that cactus and he’s hiding near that flower, see the reddish skin? Yep, that’s a lizard, good job, Bo, don’t get too close, yep, that had to have hurt Bo; cacti needles are sharp.”
On the fifth day he found some sea otters basking on some rocks and sent the camera in to film them with their young and that was the best day.
On the sixth day he found thousands of those tiny blue crabs racing all over the beach mating and filmed that and the birds flying down to snatch the crabs up and carry them back to their nests to feed their young.
On the seventh day he filmed himself sitting in his chair with the dogs sitting by his feet and watching the sunset.
“Today we’re going to do something different; we’re going to watch the sunset over the water. This is called Laguna Bay and tonight is a full moon and there’s nothing more beautiful on this planet than watching the sunset over the water and listen to the sound of the waves crashing gently against the shore. So be quiet and listen and watch. Shush.”
He aimed the camera at the setting sun and just sat there. The sky blazed purple and orange and faded slowly to dark blue and the moon came out and sparkled like diamonds on the midnight blue ocean and the waves danced and he aimed at the waves crashing on the shores and you could practically feel the breeze. Then the film ended and he turned the camera off and went to bed.
The next morning Harry broke up camp and headed home. He wanted to get the videos to DJ and Steve and get their honest appraisal of them and see if they were interested in his little travel documentaries. If they weren’t he wasn’t going to stop doing them, he loved filming in front of the camera and he could always save them for himself and watch them later and remember this time when he was two thousand years old. He laughed when he thought of that. Harry at two thousand years old, he wondered who he would be with then. Maybe one of the kids would have someone nice he could fall in love with; he didn’t know anyone living right now who really interested him. But then he really hadn’t taken a real look, maybe he would be surprised if he tried.
Harry landed and unloaded his cow first thing and put her in the corral and then unloaded his stuff and unpacked everything and cleaned out the passenger carriers and then went into the house. He frowned when he saw that horrible picture sitting on the desk in the kitchen because he knew he had thrown it in the trash. That meant that someone, one of the kids had been in his house and he didn’t appreciate them going through his trash. He took the picture outside and burned it and scattered the ashes and then returned inside and fixed lunch. His appetite was still nonexistent but he tried to force food down so he made a sandwich and some salad and ate half of each and feed the rest of the turkey to the dogs who greatly appreciated it. He put the uneaten salad in the compost bucket.
“Guess I’ll do some weeding,” he muttered knowing that while he’d been gone folks had probably gotten lazy about it. He took his cell phone and listened to his home messages while he was weeding, he had about fifty, all about the same and all about the divorce and wedding. Harry listened to a few and then deleted them all.
“Harry, honey, I just heard the news, I’m so sorry to hear about you and Jake splitting up, if there’s anything I can do, please call me.” Fran sounded like she’d been crying. “Of course I have to go to the wedding; I know you’ll understand; I love you both so much.” Harry deleted her.
“Harry, my friend, I have just received the strangest wedding invitation, your husband Jake has invited me to his wedding to Violet but how can this be when he is married to you, please call me back, I am very worried about you,” Sarek said. Harry deleted him too.
“Harry this is Kathleen, please call me back, please don’t be mad at me, we’ve,” Harry deleted her.
“Harry, this is DJ, sorry to hear about you and Jake, thanks for filling my store, that was really nice, I’m going to the wedding,” Harry deleted him.
“Henry, it’s your mother,” Harry deleted her. Then he just deleted everyone, there was nothing anyone was going to say to make everything alright or make Jake come home which was the only thing that was going to make everything alright, so why talk to any of them. And DJ was the only who thanked him for filling his stores, the rest of the selfish bastards probably expected it. Well, they were going to wait a long time for that to happen again, he was through with being Harry the nice