{"id":1061,"date":"2012-09-20T08:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T16:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2012-10-21T21:41:49","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T05:41:49","slug":"these-particular-curses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/1061\/these-particular-curses\/","title":{"rendered":"These particular curses"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Without asking me the kids had found the VCR in the living and were watching an old Bill Nye the Science Guy video, about the only video Ivor had in the house. I turned it off and knelt in front of them where they sat on the sofa.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys, I\u2019ve got something to tell you,\u201d I said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a few more days left in our vacation, and since your grandparents are all busy or out of town, we\u2019re going to a very special place in North Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre Gabriel and Megan coming?\u201d Dante asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ll both really have a lot of fun. It\u2019s out in the country. The people live in Indian-style houses. Kind of like camping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to wait for Gabriel and Megan,\u201d Dante said.<\/p>\n

I sighed. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. They\u2019re not coming back for two weeks. And we have to go home by then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen let\u2019s just go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDante. This is just something we have to do. It\u2019s important for me because \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you go. I want to go home and see Daddy.\u201d He scowled, and I didn\u2019t know what to say to him. Rarely does Dante clench his teeth this way. In the past two days, he had seemed so happily immersed in play with Gabriel, that I\u2019d almost forgotten the scene back in our apartment when he\u2019d wanted to see Charlie. Obviously feelings were surfacing that I\u2019d let myself forget. \u201cWe\u2019ll see Daddy pretty soon,\u201d I told him. \u201cJust a week or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next morning, after packing the car and giving Andy and Ivor hugs goodbye, I found Dante and Chloe huddled together on Gabriel\u2019s bed. Dante, on his back, stared at the ceiling. Chloe lay with her leg across his thighs, one hand in her mouth, the other tangled in his shirt. \u201cCome on,\u201d I said, \u201cor we\u2019ll be late for the plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

They watched me with lizard eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen. Even if we wanted to go home, we\u2019d have to drive to the airport,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s too far to drive back to New York. And airplanes don\u2019t fly out of Gabriel and Megan\u2019s backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

That got Dante up, and Chloe followed him. But I was only postponing my problem. Dante, fascinated with maps and transportation, had no trouble figuring out that the airplane we were going to board was headed for North Carolina. When the time came to get on the plane, he refused to rise from his seat at the gate. \u201cDante, up!\u201d I said, getting red in the face. \u201cNow! I\u2019m warning you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He just sat. And with no time left to waste, I resorted to force, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him toward the boarding ramp.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d He shouted, drawing stares.<\/p>\n

\u201cDante!\u201d I hissed. \u201cThere are going to be serious consequences if you don\u2019t come right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFuck you, asshole!\u201d It was the foulest language I\u2019d ever heard come out of Dante\u2019s mouth, and it was all I could do not to slap him. \u201cDeviant bastard!\u201d he said. The entire airport, every ticket agent and passenger, every janitor and security guard seemed to freeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cDante!\u201d The scream tore my throat and scorched his face, and though I still resisted the impulse to strike him, I couldn\u2019t stop my hands from tightening on his wrists and shaking until his demon mask melted into fear.<\/p>\n

Then at last I took him into my arms. He was almost too heavy to carry that way, but I staggered forward, towing Chloe with the other hand, my purse and carry-on bag somehow looped over my shoulder. Everyone made room for us, the Bad Mother and the Abused Child, murmurs of disapproval welling up behind us as we passed. As I stumbled down the ramp, I remembered where Dante learned these particular curses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read previous post<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Read the next post.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next morning, after packing the car and giving Andy and Ivor hugs goodbye, I found Dante and Chloe huddled together on Gabriel\u2019s bed. Dante, on his back, stared at the ceiling. Chloe lay with her leg across his thighs, one hand in her mouth, the other tangled in his shirt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[129,128,97,89,96,88,53,21,10],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrienne","tag-chloe","tag-dante","tag-digital","tag-fiction","tag-interactive","tag-novel","tag-poly","tag-polyamorous","tag-polyamory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}