The Family Unit and Other Fantasies Read Online Free

didn’t give us
everything
, he felt like saying. Instead, with an inquisitive gesture toward the tube, he asked, “May I . . . ?”
    “Oh, absolutely,” Bethel said. “Just don’t hurt your face—”
    It was an unthinkingly silly thing to say, but protective; Arch appreciated it. Feeling less hostile, attaching the strap, he politely challenged Bethel to a game of tennis.
    “Well, I’m not very good—it’s only for my son, but. . . .”
    Soon they were deep into a match, making motions while cartoons actually functioned for them. When the set was over—Arch over Bethel, six-love—they felt almost as fatigued as if they had been on a court themselves.
    “That was fun,” Arch panted.
    Breathing heavily and smiling, Bethel said, “Would you like a glass of water? And there’s some coconut cake, too, homemade, my own recipe.”
    A few minutes later, she was gently smearing the icing on her surprisingly small, almost non-existent nipple, which looked like a beautiful mosquito bite on her bare right breast. Tenderly restraining her wrist with the strap still around it, holding her down upon the living room couch, “This isn’t like me,” Arch said.
    “Yes,” Bethel said, kissing his nasty nose and guiding him inside her, “it is.”
    All Arch thought afterwards was how he had never known he liked the taste of coconut.

    Further tests turned up no more evidence of illness: Arch got the good news from Dr. Clay’s nurse in a message on his machine. While relieved beyond words, he felt the lack of a personal touch in how he had been contacted, as if Dr. Clay had simply passed him onto others. He sat on the bed beside his sleeping wife and whispered his prognosis to her, but she didn’t hear it, as she had never heard of his worries in the first place.
    Later that day, Arch was called by the local police to come get his son, who had been arrested for shoplifting a video game from a store. At the precinct, he paid the surprisingly high bail and took Bode home. The boy’s eyes were so red he looked as if he had been crying for hours.
    Passing their car in the parking lot, in the custody of his own father, was another boy, Lon, who played on Bode’s team. Sniffling, Arch’s son looked at this boy with a mixture of anger and subservience that made Arch uncomfortable.
    “Why?” he asked in an almost inaudible voice and got no reply.

    Bode ran quickly upstairs and slammed the door of his room—in order to wake his mother? Arch didn’t know. Then he heard his son start to cry again. Rounding the corner to the living room, he found Brenda Keen sitting where she had the first time they met.
    “Celinda let me in,” she said, and Arch knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t pursue it and simply stood shaking before her, his head bowed like a prisoner about to be executed.
    “I might as well be blunt here, Arch—we’re all adults. I’m afraid this isn’t working out.” As evidence, she pointed to a new portfolio, this one tangerine. “We were hoping you could maintain the levels we need to retain the Wilton brand, but our board sees a dismaying inability on your part to do so. And if
you
don’t care, then how can we help you?”
    “But I do care,” he barely choked out.
    “The financial terms of dissolving the agreement were spelled out in the original paperwork. The only thing we need to iron out between us is what to do about your name, as that will still be owned and is trademarked by D.E. Do you want to do that now or later? It’s all the same to us.”
    “Later—no, now.” Arch smarted under Brenda’s harsh, indifferent tone, as if she had already dismissed and forgotten him. He wanted to please her even more than he wished to delay their final parting, though it was irrational; she would not be mollified, and he knew it.
    “You can change one letter if you like, that’s what we’ve done in the past. If it makes it less disorienting. It’s really no problem for us.”
    There was a quick