=================
Friday, October 16
=================
Marcus slept in the next day, and didn’t wake up until after Jessie had left for school. I should appreciate the feeling of sleeping in on a weekday, he thought, but it’s too hard. I know I should be working right now. Instead I’m just gonna sit around all day and do nothing. The stress alone is gonna give me a headache. In truth, he wanted to just head back down to his liquor cabinet and start the day by taking a load off. But he knew he couldn’t repeat what he did yesterday. Even if he still felt discouraged and borderline hopeless in his situation, Jessie was right last night in saying that he’d feel less depressed today. It was a marginal difference, but he did feel slightly better. If I can keep myself from getting drunk as a way to solve my emotions, then at least that’s a step in the right direction, he told himself.
He reached out to grab his special, mini-sized phone that sat nearby on his mattress. He still slept in the same bed he slept in when he was normal sized, since it was still comfortable and he saw no reason to change. But since the bed-side table was too far away he had started using the large expanse of mattress to put things down on since it was way more room than he needed to sleep on. Turning it on revealed that he’d gotten a text from Jessie while he was still sleeping, sent right around the time she normally left for her bus. “i know looking for a job is stressful, but at least u get to wake up whenever u want! my school counselor said that sometimes doing chores can be relaxing for some people, so maybe theres something simple and easy that u can do at your size. idk, just a thought. but maybe itll help u think of something. but at least that way u can still be active and get something accomplished which would be good for ur motivation 😊 either way, love u, hope u have a good day!” And below that text was another one sent a minute later: “sheesh sry that was kinda long lol.” Marcus smiled at his daughter’s relentless positive spirit. Her upbeat vibes rubbing off on him every day when she was home had been the best medicine for him so far, and he knew that without her, he’d be in a far worse state emotionally. Whenever he felt like he wouldn’t be able to get through the next few weeks, or months, or however long it took for him to get accustomed to his new size, he’d just picture his loving daughter, and be glad that he at least had her by his side. I’ll love her more than she’ll ever know.
He realized that she was right though. Smart for her age. Distracting myself for the next couple days would probably be good for me. I have some time. Especially with these disability payments. Yeah. I’ll be fine. After getting up and getting dressed, Marcus headed to the kitchen to make breakfast while watching the morning news. Even though he was a lot smaller and his morning routine looked different from the outside, at its core it was still the same. He wasn’t so small that he couldn’t still do the things he was used to doing every morning, albeit with a bit of extra work. As he was getting some egg from his mini fridge, a mixture of the yolk and whites that had been proportioned by his daughter ahead of time, he took a look around at his roomy house. It had never felt cramped, but before his shrinking, it could feel small sometimes. But that was such a trivial concern now, since he practically felt like he was living in a mansion. Jessie really suggested that I find a chore I can do in this place? he wondered, pouring some of the blend into a pan before putting the container back in the fridge. He could sweep the floor, although that seemed like it’d take hours to do. Technically he had a ladder to climb up to the counters that were far above his head, but many of the normal kitchen items were too big to be put away. Actually, that was one beneficial outcome from their family’s new living situation, was that it was teaching Jessie independence at a faster rate. Since Marcus couldn’t use almost anything normal sized and had his own set of specially sized items, the only person who could ever be responsible for the house’s messes was Jessie. And the only person who was ever responsible for the little things occasionally lying about was Marcus. And her messes never felt cluttered to him when there was so much space everywhere, while his messes never bothered her since they were so small. All in all, that aspect of their home life had really worked out great, and had never been an issue thus far.
But he still wanted to do something. Even if the floors would take awhile to clean, Jessie had practice after school, so she wouldn’t be home for another 7 or 8 hours. And he wouldn’t need to use the kind of broom that most people use to tidy up, and have to maneuver around all the corners and crevices of his house. He could pull out one of those wide sweepers, like the kind people use to sweep gymnasiums (except made for someone a foot tall, which was still relatively easy enough for Marcus to use), and just walk the length of his house. I could even put on a podcast or something, or an audiobook. And taking a bit longer to sweep the house would be a good little cardio workout for him too. He began feeling more upbeat as he began realizing that his plan wasn’t half bad. The longer he thought about it, the more the pros outweighed the cons.
As he finished cooking up his scrambled eggs and slid them onto a plate, he imagined Jessie’s reaction when she came home. Even if Marcus made his own meals, he could never realistically make enough for his giant daughter, so she’d had to take up the task of cooking for herself every night now. And coming home to a clean, tidy house was the kind of thing that the cook of the household would appreciate. So that’ll be my job for the day, he thought proudly. One step at a time.
* * * * * *
“Wait, did you clean the floors? They look so good!” beamed Jessie as she shrugged off her backpack and gym bag on the kitchen table. Marcus grinned at her reaction, which had been exactly what he was hoping for. “I guess you got my message this morning, you never texted you love me back.”
Her dad chuckled nervously, “Sorry, I’m not great at remembering to text back, but I’m glad you noticed the floors. They obviously look way different to me but I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to tell. You were right, it felt good to have a task to do for the day,” he smiled.
“Well maybe we should think of something for you to do every day,” Jessie responded, heading to the pantry to pick out a snack to eat.
“I don’t know if there’s really enough stuff to keep me occupied though. Like this,” he said, his arms out as he motioned around at the shining wooden floorboards, “took me at least an hour, probably more. But most chores that aren’t at my level are just impossible to do. I might need to get creative.”
“That’s OK, I can help you be creative,” Jessie reassured him. “Tomorrow’s a Saturday anyways, so I’ll be home all day. Maybe you can help me with something instead and by Monday you’ll think of something new. Like you could help me with homework, I never feel good about the essays I have to write for English.”
“What about Sunday though?”
Jessie sighed at her dad’s stubborn sense of worry, but kept her smiling demeanor. She tried picking some food out of her braces, a habit she’d developed when she was thinking about something. “We’ll worry about Sunday when it’s Sunday, OK?” she decided upon. “We don’t even need to worry about tomorrow yet, it’s still today. And today, you did this,” she said, looking around at the floor. Her phone buzzed, and she saw that her friend had texted her. “Anyways, I’m gonna go to my room, let me know if you need anything,” she said cheerily. He could feel the slight tremor of her footfalls as she turned to head to the door, slipping off her shoes before disappearing into her room. Marcus stood there, and looked around the floor of the kitchen one last time. He had barely any idea how clean the counters were since he couldn’t even see them, but at least from his point of view it looked fairly clean. He had been productive for the day, that was good. Now he just wondered what kind of work Jessie would suggest he do tomorrow.
* * * * * *
The wind blasted in Marcus’ face as he flew down the sidewalk, tightly clutched by Jessie’s hand as she biked to the neighborhood park. He’d been wary not just about being handled by her, but of even going to the park in the first place. All the giant strangers that milled around outside the comfort of his home made him nervous, but Jessie insisted that it would be good for his mental health. Not just because he’d be getting some fresh air by being out of the house, but because he’d get an opportunity to be around other people, as giant as they may be. As much as he wasn’t immediately keen to the idea, he knew that she was right; being around others would be good for him to get used to. But since his car was still at the auto shop having its interior refitted for someone his size to drive, and her clothes didn’t have any pockets, she just had to hold onto her dad super tight while gripping the handlebars of her bike. The rough, textured rubber of the bike’s handle was uncomfortable against his back, but luckily his daughter’s hands were soft and malleable, so the front of his body was a lot more snug in her gentle grasp.
After they’d arrived at the park, Jessie sat down on one of the benches and carefully placed her dad on her shoulder for him to sit on. I gotta admit, this is actually pretty nice, he thought, gazing at the setting sun and listening to the chirping birds as he felt the cool breeze against his body. All while relaxing with his daughter. They made light conversation about her day at school, enjoying each other’s company, until Marcus suddenly had an idea.
“I just thought of another thing I can do with all this free time I have now. How about I take you to school in the mornings?” he said, and her face instantly lit up. He couldn’t see it directly, but from his side point of view he was able to see her eyes widen and her cheekbones raise.
“You mean like, every day?” she asked excitedly, turning to look at him. She had to extend her neck back as far as she could towards her other shoulder to give him some space, since his body was so close to her giant face. He could faintly smell her breath wash over him from how close she was with him sitting on her shoulder.
“Well, at least until I get the car back from the shop, and at least until I get a new job—if I ever do. But otherwise yeah, every day. I obviously have the time to now, and if you didn’t have to take the bus, you could leave, what, half an hour later?”
Jessie shrugged, “Yeah, something like that. It takes about twenty minutes, but the bus drivers try to get there super early.”
“Well then, if I start taking you, then you’ll be able to wake up half an hour later, which means going to bed at 9:30 instead of 9. I know you usually don’t have a lot of time on volleyball nights since you need to take a shower but you come home so late, so hopefully that should give you a little more peace of mind and let you relax for a while longer.”
Jessie was bursting with joy, her dad’s new rules sent a surge of energy throughout her tired body, and she tensed her body as if she was about to jump up excitedly, but held herself back so that Marcus wouldn’t fall off. But Marcus could still sense the change in her body language, especially with how close he was, and smiled warmly at her reaction; it always made him feel good to see her so happy, especially if he knew it was because of something he said or did. “Thank you so much, daddy!” she squealed, and turned her face forwards again with her head angled down in his direction. She gently brought her hand up to his side and pressed his body into her cheek, one of her newest ways of giving him a hug. Since she couldn’t move too erratically, her shoulders alternated in moving up and down, giving her dad a bit of a bumpy ride as she serenaded him with her gratitude. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you,” she repeated, over and over with each shrug of her shoulders.
“OK, OK,” he laughed, trying to push away from her cheek. But she was much too strong in comparison for him to stop her, and she didn’t even realize at first that he was even trying to push away. “I knew you’d be appreciative but didn’t think it would mean this much.” But she eventually noticed the small nudges of his hands against her dimples, and released him from her hug.
“It’s the little things, Daddy. An extra half hour each night is a lot when I normally only get 10 or 15 minutes to myself.”
“That’s true,” he mused, and turned back towards the setting sun while reflecting on how proud he was of his parenting skills.