Weird Relative

another story for class. Response appreciated

Arthur sat in his worn leather armchair in his dimly lit living room. A stocky, balding man pushing 80, he didn’t get up from his chair for many reasons other than to eat or sleep. Sometimes he even slept there. The television, old enough to still be box-like and have an antenna on top, never stopped playing Western films. John Wayne was, of course, his favorite, and he would spend day after day alone in his chair watching several films. His neighbors on either side of his small, disheveled farmhouse were young families, and they never bothered him. For all he knew, they had never even seen him and didn’t know he existed. He only ever saw them from his windows.
            When he did rise from his chair, on rare occasion, he would spend a considerable amount of time in front of his window, peering through the yellowing blinds. The windowsill needed to be dusted, but that was a woman’s job, and he didn’t have a woman anymore. She’d been gone for over a decade.
            Arthur never ventured outside his home. His son stopped by every week or so to bring him groceries and check up on him. He didn’t have any friends, and his remaining family had rarely come to visit him after his wife’s death. It was probably his fault; he’d never made a very good effort to be involved in the lives of his children. He’d worked the land of this farm for many of their adolescent years, and before that he had held a factory job for 20 year and was rarely home unless he was asleep. On the off chance that he did have time at home, he would watch his family from a distance. He regretted that now, in his later years. He wished he had let them know what they meant to him. The only one who knew was Zelda, his wife, and that was because she knew everything, especially things about him.

Instead of participating actively in modern society, he lived vicariously through his neighbors. He watched their younger children play in the yard for most afternoons. Today was Tuesday, so he went over to his window at around 3pm, just as the children were getting home from school. They had one boy, the older child, and he had one younger sister. The age difference wasn’t much, maybe two or three years, but it was mostly obvious in the way the boy treated his sister. Jeff was a good boy.

As his stone grey eyes peered out of the glass that was beginning to cloud with age, he couldn’t help but smile slightly as he watched the children race each other across the yard. Jeff was clearly faster than his sister, Emily, but every now and then, just before their makeshift finish line between two sturdy oak trees, he would slow his pace and let her win. They were still so young, and Emily didn’t seem to catch on. Her smile warmed his heart every time she beat her brother in a race. Jeff, though he usually tried to look disappointed that he had lost to make his trick convincing, but never hesitated to show excitement for his sister.

Just then, their mother stepped onto the back porch. She was wearing a pretty, lavender, cap-sleeved spring dress with an apron around her waist, half of her curly, blonde hair was pulled back, and her smile rivaled the sun for being the brightest light in the world, but that was just his opinion. She was beautiful. He watched her with fond eyes as she lowered herself to the eye levels of the children, handing them each a glass of lemonade. She would talk to them for a while, just like she always did after they came home.

When they had finished their lemonade, Jeff and Emily walked along the fence that kept the horses in, talking and laughing like young children do before they have any worries. Their mother sat on the porch and watched them happily for a long time, taking in the sun and sipping her own glass of lemonade. After watching the children for a long time, Arthur had turned his attention to their pretty, young mother. He could watch her sit in that wicker chair for hours, he thought to himself. Just then, as if she had heard his thoughts, she turned her head slowly towards his window. Arthur took a step back just before they made eye contact. From where he was now standing, he could still see the children, and that was enough. Suddenly, Jeff looked up at him and smiled shyly. Arthur laughed to himself as he stepped forward again, this time pressing his hand to the glass. Jeff called out to him.

            “I love you, dad.”
            “I love you too, Jeff.”
            “Dad?”
            Jeff entered his father’s house slowly, surprised to find him out of his chair. Normally John Wayne was on the television and Arthur was hanging on his every word. He wasn’t usually at the window, and he definitely wasn’t usually talking to himself
            Gently, he walked over to his father, placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked at Jeff with great confusion. It occurred to him that maybe his father was just getting old. Maybe he should have listened to his wife when she’d suggested Jeff put his father in a nursing home after his mother’s death. The man was just so stubborn, and Jeff didn’t feel like fighting with him about much these days. He and his father had never been close, but seeing him in this state brought out his compassionate side.
            “What have you been doing today, dad?”
            Arthur had gone back to staring blankly out the window of the old farmhouse. “I was watching the neighbor’s kids play. They just got home from school. Jeff and Emily were racing in the backyard, between the oak trees.”
            “Dad,” Jeff spoke cautiously, “we’ve talked about this before. You don’t have neighbors.”
            “Yes I do,” he insisted. “They are a family of four. Two cute kids, and their mother is such a beauty. I don’t see much of the father, though.”
            Typical, Jeff thought. As much as this behavior from his father disturbed him, he couldn’t help but feel angry towards him. He remembered him and Emily racing together as kids, but his father was never there. Why was he remembering that now? It had always been the three of them: Jeff, Emily, and his mother. His dad was almost always working when he was a kid, and when he was home, he never wanted to spend any time with Jeff. His parents had a lovely marriage, right up until his mother’s death, and he knew that her loss had been hard on his father. But he and Emily had always been on good terms. It seemed to Jeff that the only cut string in their family ties was between him and his father. Speaking to the imaginary figures outside was the only time Jeff had heard his dad say he loved him.
            “Dad, there aren’t really people out there.” Jeff was speaking as patiently to his father as he could. “I’m Jeff. Your son? That’s me you’re seeing. That’s our family. They’re just memories, dad. Come sit down, okay?”
            Arthur finally looked up at his son with his cold, grey eyes. Behind them was an overwhelming sense of sadness as he walked towards his leather chair, leaving the reality he had created for himself at the window. Confused and hurt, he just wanted to talk to Zelda. She was the only one who ever made him feel like he wasn’t completely alone. Though his son was in the room, he felt as disconnected as always. Carefully, Arthur sat down in his chair as Jeff turned on John Wayne, and then exited to the other room to put his father’s groceries away.