Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 3

thought you were going to help me with this?" He pointed down at the box of bolts he was sorting. My dad was slim with a small paunch that fell over his belt. I guess he'd be described as wiry, with gray hair and the glasses he had recently started having to wear all the time. Why do we not see our parents aging as we grow up with them, but a few months or years away and they suddenly become old? Not that my parents were even close to retirement or anything. It was still weird to see them as older adults.
    "I went over for a coffee to get me better focused," I answered. I leaned on the counter and stared at the bolts. I am sure there was a difference between them, but I wouldn't know. My dad continued to hold out hope that I'd one day know my way around wrenches and ratchets. I didn't have the heart to tell him I still had a hard time correctly operating an electric screw driver.
    "Focus," my dad mocked, with a laughing huff. "There are only two sizes here. Put the two-inch here and the two-and-a-half over here," he said, indicating two other boxes.
    "I thought you bought these in bulk by size," I said, picking up a bolt and examining it. "Did you get some sort of sale for separating them yourself?"
    "I wish." My dad barely looked at the bolts as he sorted like a machine. "Three-year old tried scaling the shelves and brought these two boxes down. You remember McKaley, from your high school? She was blond back then, I think. It was her son that made the mess."
    McKaley had been a popular girl, wanted by all the boys. Apparently somebody got her. "I didn't know she was married."
    My dad smirked. "And here I thought you were a modern man, not held down by conventions," he said with a lofty tone. He tossed four more bolts in the… two-inch box, I think. "She's not married. She's on her own and doing ok as a salesperson over at the car dealership. Heard she's one of their top sellers."
    That was surprising. Who knew McKaley could sell cars? I guess people can surprise you. I held up a bolt. "Is this a two-and-a-half?"
    With a sigh, my dad shook his head. "I thought you environmentalists built forts in trees and strapped yourselves to whaling ships. How are you going to do that when you can't tell which bolt is bigger?"
    "Not all environmentalists are like that. I'm more into educating the public and working with them in fixing and avoiding environmental impact."
    "Is that why you have your mom keeping trash in a coffee can on the kitchen counter?"
    "It's a compost collector. For the compost pile I am making."
    "And I thought you were just making a trash can with a rotten smell in the side yard for kicks."
    "Actually, it's so the bodies won't be discovered as quickly when the urge to kill strikes me again," I said. My dad laughed. He enjoyed teasing me but I knew he put his banana peels in the can. And I knew he was proud of me. I may not be able to rebuild an engine or put in new plumbing, but my dad didn't care. I was one of the lucky people on this earth who ended up with parents that truly loved me and encouraged me. Don't think I take that for granted.
    We rode home together in my dad's truck. After dropping off a load of nails to one of his long-time customers, he pulled into our driveway. Not only do our parents suddenly age, but our houses get smaller when we come back home. Seriously, what is up with that?
    "Hey, baby," my dad called out as we came inside. Following our noses, we went to the kitchen to see my mom standing in the middle of it with a glare on her face.
    "Dinner is ruined."
    This was, unfortunately, a fairly regular occurrence. My dad, taking it in his usual stride, just went to her and hugged her. "That's fine. We'll try again another day. You want Chinese?"
    My mom is the senior librarian for our town. She loves it and I always loved that my mom had tons of free books to give me whenever I wanted. For a while, as a kid, I thought we actually owned all the books in town. JJ the Jerk, set me straight on that one day, and I vowed to never read another book if it may have ever been contaminated by him. Then I quickly realized that the jerk probably never learned to read.
    My mom is just as enraptured with books as I am and is constantly trying new things that she finds in them. She has a craft room filled with the beginnings of every handicraft known to mankind. She has several half-gardens in the back yard. But her greatest bane is cooking books. They're like a drug to my mom. She reads almost every