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Wednesday, October 21
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On Wednesday morning, Marcus felt like he was getting used to this newly adjusted schedule that he had given himself. Waking up later than he typically would for his old job, but early enough that he could take his daughter to school still. “Morning, daddy,” she said cheerily as she passed him in the hallway on her way to the bathroom.
“Hey sweetie,” he said, smiling up at her as he headed to the kitchen. Jessie had already eaten breakfast and gotten dressed for school, but she still needed about 20 minutes to finish her makeup before she’d be ready for her dad to take her. Which was the perfect amount of time that Marcus needed to eat his own breakfast and and get dressed.
Jessie’s dad was waiting in the living room when he heard her shuffle up behind him. He turned to see her smiling down at him, a ponytail draped over her shoulder, wearing a simple school hoodie and black yoga pants. “You look nice today,” he commented, standing up as he grabbed his keys off the coffee table. “I don’t remember the last time I took you to school.”
Jessie rolled her eyes at what she considered to be her dad’s overbearing affection, but couldn’t help but blush a little at the compliment. “I’m not even wearing anything special, these are like, casual clothes.” She took the lead and headed into the garage, holding the door open for her dad and pushing the garage door opener. Then they hopped into his car, him making sure his booster seat and pedal extensions were secured, and her making sure she had her homework for second period Pre-Algebra, and together headed off to school.
* * * * * *
That afternoon, Jessie came home again with her friend Camila. He was in the kitchen trying to cook dinner when he heard the front door open and noticed the two of them come in. “Oh, hey girls,” he called out, and they both greeted him back as they came in to see what it was that he was cooking: fettuccine pasta. “Camila, right?” he asked, smiling to the small girl standing next to his daughter. Because of his stool that he was using to reach the stove, he was only a few inches shorter than her, which made him feel more natural when he was addressing people. Both the girls’ heads were twice the size of his, but at least he didn’t have to look up just to speak to them.
“Yeah,” she nodded, smiling since he remembered her name. “What are you cooking, Mr. Tilden?”
“Oh, just pasta, it’s probably not very exciting. But more steps means stuff takes a lot longer for me to cook compared to her,” he said, tilting his head towards Jessie, “so I cook a lot of simple things nowadays. But it’s still good!” He stepped down a step on his stool and pulled open the drawer next to the stove and grabbed a spoon. It felt like it was nearly a foot long compared to his old height, but he was still easily able to use one hand to lift it. Closing the drawer, he got back up and dipped it into the sauce. “Here, lemme know what you think,” he said, and grabbed the spoon with his other hand to steady it as Camila leaned forward and opened her mouth to take in the sauce. Marcus watched as her lips closed his culinary concoction, and he pulled the spoon back out to get a second dip for his daughter. “Good?” he asked.
“Yeah, tastes homemade,” Camila answered, as Marcus gave Jessie a taste as well.
“Still got it, daddy,” Jessie said. “Can Camila eat with us tonight?”
“My mamá would probably be glad if she knew she didn’t need to cook for me when she got home,” Camila explained.
“Of course, yeah, yeah, I always make more than enough so I can have leftovers. I used to work non-traditional hours at work too, I would usually arrive at the studio before Jessie even woke up for school,” he went on, trying to empathize with the young girl.
“Oh, where do you work?” Camila asked, genuinely curious what kind of job a two-and-a-half foot person would be able to hold down.
Marcus sighed, remembering the bad news he had gotten a week ago. “Actually, I don’t work there anymore. My… shrinking only happened over the last month, so they just let me go last Thursday.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I asked,” Camila said, looking down in embarrassment.
“No, no no no no, you didn’t know, don’t feel bad,” he said, trying to reassure her. “Besides, it’s just life, right? I’m still several feet tall, there’s stuff out there I can do, it’s just a bit harder to find.” He smile hopefully at Jessie, and she did the same, hoping to boost each other’s spirits. “I’m actually on unemployment and disability now, so I had a pretty nice safety net catching me. I’m still looking for a job because eventually the unemployment will run out, but we’re not too worried.” He reached his hand out to Jessie’s shoulder, holding it affectionately. “And I’ve gotten lots more time to spend with Jessie which has been great. She’s had after-school sports for the last year or so, so she’d get home a while after I did, and sometimes we’d get less than an hour together before she had to go to bed, or even none at all if she was at a friend’s house.”
He realized after saying that that their situation hadn’t changed that much in regards to how much time they spent together. He had been home all of yesterday, but they still only had a few minutes to spend with each other before she had to go shower and head to bed. Initially he had considered his increased time at home to be a silver lining of his new condition, but so far it was looking like not much was changing. I wish I could spend more time with Jess, he thought. Besides, she’s only got a few more years before she’ll be old enough to head off to college, and then what’ll I do? I’ll be all alone, and if I could never a new girlfriend or mother for Jess over the last 13 years, I definitely won’t find one at this height. Suddenly, he was in a despondent mood once more, brought on only by his own words and thoughts. He fantasized about a future where he might live with his daughter beyond her college years. A lot of parents end up moving in with their children, especially when they get old and it’s harder to look after themselves. If it’s hard to look after myself, maybe I could do the same with Jess. It wasn’t a far-fetched thought, but that was at least 6 years away. A lot could change in that amount of time, so he decided to just stop thinking about it altogether. For now, he’d simply try to spend more time with his daughter.
Unbeknownst to Marcus, his words triggered almost the same kind of guilt with Jessie. She knew that she was all that her dad had, even more so now that he was without a job, one that he seemed to like a good amount. She wasn’t sure what he’d do after she went off to college, but between his DSD and now what seemed like a depression he got after losing his job, she wanted to work harder to make sure they continued having a great relationship, especially during this period when he was jobless and home all the time.
“Well, we have to keep working on our class project,” she said, “so just let us know when dinner will be ready.”
“Sounds good,” her dad replied, and she twirled around to head to her room, with Camila following behind. Turning back to the stove, he tasted the fettuccine sauce for himself. The girls were being too generous, he thought, wrinkling his face in mild disgust. Needs more salt.
* * * * * *
Shortly after the three of them finished what ended up being a much better dinner than what was hinted at during their tasting session, Camila left to go home, and Jessie retired to her room while Marcus watched his nightly news shot. But after it had finished and he started browsing what else was on, he started to remember his conversation with Camila from earlier that afternoon, and the thoughts that followed. Here I am all by myself, doing nothing important. This is a great chance to spend time with Jess, and I’m just sitting here. With a huff that signaled the start to what would hopefully be a changed attitude around the house, he hopped off the couch and headed to his daughter’s room to see what she was up to.
Her door was open, and soft, melancholy music got progressively louder as he turned the corner into her room to see what she was up to. His daughter was on the ground in front of him, her hands flat on the ground and arms upright, with her torso pointed towards the sky, while her legs extended behind her, the tops of her feet facing the floor. It looked like she was doing yoga. Before he could say anything, her legs shuffled backwards and her feet did a 180 on her toes, so her soles were flat on the ground now. Her legs lifted higher and higher into the air as her torso and head moved to face the ground this time. He had never been into yoga, but he at least knew which one this was called: downward facing dog. He glanced at her butt, which had slowly risen up to face him as her legs grew higher, and he quickly squatted down to look between her legs and address her, although her eyes were closed. “Hey, just came to see what you were doing” he said, and her eyes popped open, looking at the small man between her legs that was upside down from her point of view.
“Just some yoga,” she smiled.
“Oh, I didn’t know you liked to do that. Is it for volleyball?”
“Uh, kinda, Ms. Johnson never told us we had to do it, I just figured it’d help with my flexibility. I only started doing it last week.”
“Well it’s about time, I’ve bought how many pairs of yoga pants for you since you were little, and you’re just starting now?” Jessie couldn’t help but giggle and roll her eyes at his dad joke. She obviously couldn’t punch him from her position, so she lifted one of her feet off the ground instead to give him a playful jab. “Whoah,” he laughed, bumbling backwards as he dodged to get out of the way. “So how many positions have you learned then?”
“Ummm… like five I think? I haven’t really learned any new ones since I started, I’ve just been doing the ones I already knew about. This is downward facing dog, and before that I did upward facing dog, and before that I did a butterfly, actually I don’t know if that one’s actually a yoga position but it’s still stretching. And then I know there’s the one where like your hands are stretched out on both sides and your feet are really wide but kinda bent, and the one where you stand up straight and have to put your foot on your inner thigh and hold your hands up above you. So that’s… yeah, five.”
“You don’t even know all the names? What if you’re doing them wrong?”
“Uhhhh…” she took a few seconds to think about an answer. She hadn’t actually considered that, but they were pretty simple, she didn’t think she was messing them up. “What do you mean?”
“Do you have to do push-ups when you have practice?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“OK, so has Ms. Johnson ever explained the right way and the wrong way to do push-ups?”
“Ohhh…” She was starting to understand where he was going with this. “Yeah.”
“Right. You’d think that you’d be working out your arms either way, you’re just moving up and down, but if they’re too far apart or too close together, you can actually hurt your muscles.”
“Oh, I see what you mean,” she said, and stood up now, turning her body to the side but still looking towards her dad. Then she held her arms out flat behind and in front of her, while stancing both her legs several feet apart, bent at the knees. “But I’m not lifting any weights or anything, so why’s it matter?”
He looked down to her knees, then glanced at the one behind her, bent like her front one that was pointed towards him. She was trying to do a warrior pose, but he noticed her positioning was wrong. “Like the one you’re doing now, I don’t know what it’s called off the top of my head, but I know your back leg isn’t supposed to be bent like that. It should be straight instead. I don’t know what the difference is, like why it’s bad, but if you were to do that for a few weeks and then start doing it at practice around everyone else, some of the other kids might know better and make fun of you for doing it wrong.”
“My teammates wouldn’t laugh at me,” she insisted, but fixed her back leg anyways. “But I’ll still do it your way,” she smirked. “Maybe I’ll look up the reasoning behind them in class tomorrow.”
“Well at least you’re starting though. I’m sure doing yoga the wrong way is still better than not doing it at all.” He scratched his neck as he looked over her body. As much as he wanted to spend more time with her, he didn’t really want to join her, and sitting around on her bed and watching just to hang out with her would be kinda weird. “Anyways, just wanted to tell you that I loved you.”
“Love you too,” she said, and with the arm that was stretched out in front of her, leaned forward a few inches and patted him on the head a few times with a smile. He didn’t love it when she did that since it made him feel like a kid, but he knew she was just being a kid and messing around, so he ignored it and went back to the living room to watch more TV.