An Accidental Family

This was the first story I published on this site. Since it first went live just over a year ago, I have learned a lot about the writing process (and invested in some good AI copyediting tools). I returned to clean up its grammar and punctuation and made some minor edits for clarity. Unable to resist the urge to tinker, I also renamed the chapters and corrected a few minor continuity errors.

If you are reading this story for the first time, I hope you enjoy it. If you are rereading it, I hope the improved copyediting makes it an even more enjoyable experience. As always, feel free to drop me a note or comment if you're so inclined.

Cheers,

CGN

AN ACCIDENTAL FAMILY - PART 1

PROLOGUE

Affable. "Characterized by ease and friendliness," as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. You can look it up if you'd like, and if you do, don't be surprised to see my picture next to the definition.

Need help moving your sofa? I have a truck; give me a call.

Need a wingman for a double date? I dress alright and can make small talk with just about anyone.

Stuck late at the bar and need a ride home? I've got your back (but please try not to throw up on the seats.)

I accepted long ago that I am not the main character in the game of life. I'm the guy you meet on a side quest who makes you smile and advances the plot while cracking jokes and busting out some bad dance moves. You won't regret spending time with me, but in the end, you will move on with the rest of your game, and I will be nothing but a pleasant memory. And that's alright. Or at least it was for the first 29 years of my life until I met Jason and Jen.

CHAPTER 1

I was born and raised just outside a small city in the northeastern corner of Georgia. My parents had me quite late in life. They had always wanted a large family but were unable to conceive and couldn't afford the expensive infertility treatments that were coming onto the market in the early eighties.

I was their miracle baby, and I was deeply loved.

My dad was a mechanic and a darn good one at that. He ran his own shop with three bays and two gas pumps out front. He was fair and honest and treated everyone with kindness and humility. He never charged more than his customers could pay, and that wasn't very much in our neck of the woods. But they repaid his kindness in small ways, and that was enough.

Every winter, our freezer was full of venison from local hunters whose mufflers wouldn't last until spring. When our roof needed replacing, Frank and his boys did the work for free and took twice as long as they might have, stopping every hour or two for a fresh lemonade or a homemade sandwich.

My mom was a homemaker. Her days were spent caring for me and keeping up with the endless maintenance and chores that are part of life on an acreage. When things got busy, she would help in the shop and bring me along. As a child, I played with my toy cars on the office floor. As I grew older, I helped the mechanics with odd jobs, and they taught me the trade. By the time I was in my teens, I was working evenings and weekends with my dad in the garage and pumping gas for tips.

My dad loved his customers and treated them like part of a giant extended family. Everyone who stopped by the garage had their windows cleaned and their oil checked, regardless of how much gas they bought. Folks who arrived as customers left as friends. My most cherished childhood memories are all from that garage—the smell of gas and grease, the mix of curses and laughter as the men worked, and my dad, at the center of it all, always ready with a smile or a helping hand.

Outside my dad's shop, I did well in school and dreamed of attending State for engineering while earning a walk-on spot on their football team. My coaches told me I had a God-given gift for catching footballs and that I could likely earn a scholarship if I put in the effort. I respected my coaches and loved my teammates, but I enjoyed hanging out with my friends or working with my dad more than running endless routes. At one point, my dad even set up a gym behind the shop to motivate me to train, but I preferred to hang out with him under a car rather than lift weights.

******

When I was 12, my dad came home one day bursting with excitement. He told my mom and me that he had a surprise for us and couldn't wait to share it. So, after dinner, we all piled into his truck and headed to the shop. When we arrived, he unveiled what could best be described as a bent pile of rusted metal. If you looked closely, you could tell that the pile had once been a car, but clearly, it had been in a horrendous accident, and it now looked more like a work of modern art than a vehicle.

"Well, what do you think?"

"It's um, its ... it's something, Dad. Really something."

Honestly, I couldn't have told you the make or model of the car that this pile of metal had been in its previous life. Hell, I could barely have told you what color it was except for the patches of cherry red paint that showed through on a couple of pieces of twisted steel.

"This is a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500," my dad explained almost reverently.

"Only 2,000 were made ... it's the most beautiful car ever built."

"Maybe it was before the accident,' I joked, "But now it's more like an oversized paperweight or a cautionary tale about the dangers of driving too fast in a sports car."

My dad paused for a moment before continuing.

"Son, true beauty is rare. It is earned, not bought. Anyone with enough money can buy a pristine Shelby at auction. Don't get me wrong, that car is still beautiful, but it has a superficial kind of beauty. It is more difficult, but also more rewarding, to look at a wreck like this and recognize the beauty it once had, and, with patience, love, and a little luck, it could have again."

"But, Dad, you could work for years to restore the Shelby only to find it is broken beyond repair. Aren't you worried you'll waste your time and end up with nothing to show for it?"

"Very little is ever broken beyond repair," my dad said with a gentle smile.

"It may be broken beyond the work you're willing to put in to fix it. And it may never look exactly like it did when it was brand new. But maybe, just maybe, if we work hard enough, we can reveal a different kind of beauty within it that is unique and precious."

He paused for a moment before looking at me.

"What do you say? Are you willing to do the work with me?"

He didn't need to ask.

That car became a touchstone in my life. It took us over three months to assess its condition, and almost every component needed to be carefully realigned or replaced. We spent nearly a year fully disassembling it, documenting the damage, and developing a restoration plan, followed by three more years of weekends and evenings stripping it and sourcing replacements for the original parts destroyed in the crash. By my senior year of high school, however, the most challenging restoration work was done, and we were on the home stretch.

******

Early that spring, I stopped by the shop on my way home from school. The sky was a beautiful canvas of reds and oranges, and I half expected to see my dad sitting outside enjoying the sunset. Regardless of how busy he was, my dad would make time to watch the sky burst into color before slipping into darkness, saying, "If God took the time to paint the sky like that for us, it would be a sin not to stop and appreciate it."

I found him collapsed under one of the hoists. The doctor said that the massive heart attack likely killed him before he hit the ground. At least he didn't suffer, and his last day was spent doing what he loved.

We buried him on the first day of June in the graveyard beside the church just off the old highway.

After my dad's death, my mom ran the shop as best she could, but she struggled. I guess she could have sold it, but she never really considered that as an option. Our employees were like family, and they mourned my father alongside us.

Mom tried to convince me to stay in school and pursue my education, but I knew that path had closed for me the day my father died. When I graduated, I started working full-time in the shop. Within a year, I had earned my credentials and took over running the day-to-day operations from my mom. By then, it was clear we couldn't keep the garage afloat and maintain the acreage, so my mom sold the house where I grew up and moved into a small apartment in town. Between my father's life insurance and the proceeds of the sale, she had just enough money to retire, and so she did.

I got an apartment near the shop, and life went on. I worked long hours, dated a bit, and checked in on my mom. In my free time, I played games or hung out with my friends. My sedentary lifestyle and questionable culinary choices led to a gentle decline in my physique. The lean and muscular build I maintained throughout high school gave way to what could generously be described as a dadbod... or bachelor-bod, if you will.

And that was my life.

CHAPTER 2

How much gaming is too much?

It was an important scientific question that I was going to answer come hell or high water. The shop was unusually quiet over the Christmas holidays, so I had taken a few days off to relax and play way more Call of Duty than was healthy. However, I made a grievous error in my planning and underestimated the volume of snacks I would consume during my gaming marathon. So, just before noon, I pulled up my track pants, found a clean pair of socks, and set out for the store to re-stock.

The apartment complex I lived in was typical for my area—a two-story cinderblock rectangle with a central staircase, two apartments on either side of the stairs, four per floor, and eight in total. The apartments at the front of the building had one larger bedroom, while those at the back had two smaller ones. Other than that, they were identical. Luxury, they were not.

As I left my place, I noticed that the door of the two-bedroom apartment across the way was propped open with a moving box. I was not surprised as the previous tenants had departed somewhat precipitously more than a month earlier. They were a young couple who seemed to fight and fuck with equal enthusiasm. Over time, the fighting seemed to win out more and more until the police were called one too many times, and their tenancy came to an abrupt end.

As I started down the stairs, I saw a boy in his early teens making his way up with a box of kitchen utensils. He was tall and lean, his body all bones and awkward angles as is so often the case for boys that age. He had a mop of sandy blonde hair and kept his eyes down as we passed.

"Morning," I said with a friendly smile.

He didn't reply and kept moving. As I headed towards the parking lot, I saw what I guessed to be his mother unloading an older model Honda with a small rental trailer full of boxes and furniture.

"Hey there," I said as I walked up. "You must be my new neighbor; I'm JT."

I was struck by two things when the woman looked up. First, she looked exhausted—the kind of weary that comes from years of living with stress and worry. The kind that burrows into your bones and seeps out when you sweat, dulling your dreams and leeching the joy from your life. Second, she was beautiful. Not pretty, not cute, not even hot; she was beautiful. I might have described her as the woman of my dreams, but that would have been a lie. Even in my dreams, I don't think I could have imagined someone with eyes that big and piercingly blue, hair that blonde, cheeks that soft (though slightly flushed with exertion), and lips that full ... well, you get the idea. And the hints of her figure beneath her baggy clothes were enough to make my heart race. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever met, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as she made eye contact with me.

"Here, let me take that for you," I said as I picked up a box from the trailer and started up the stairs.

As I helped her unload her trailer, a third thing became apparent. Jen, her name, as I came to find out, was almost comically out of my league. I have a realistic understanding of who I am and what I have to offer the world. I meet two of the three stipulations of the 6-6-6 rule (the exception being that I was never going to make a six-figure income, at least not the way that I ran the shop) with enough residual muscle from my football playing days to still be considered handsome, at least in the right light. Women like Jen, however, were not interested in 29-year-old mechanics, no matter how charming we were.

Regardless, I suddenly wished that I had changed into a fresh set of clothes before leaving my apartment—my day-old gaming sweats and T-shirt were probably not the best choice for making a good first impression. That said, I could have worn a tailored tuxedo and a top hat, and she still would have been way out of my league.

As we worked, I noticed that Jen wasn't wearing a wedding ring and that there was no sign of a partner's things among the boxes and furniture.

"Perfect," I thought sarcastically, "She is destined to be mine."

All I needed to do was lose 30 pounds, upgrade my wardrobe and housing, get a college degree, and get a higher-paying job—and convince her to fall in love with me.

I saw a PS3 in one of the moving boxes and mentioned to Jen's son, Jason, that I had just gotten the new PS4. I invited him to stop by and try it sometime. My offer seemed to break through his taciturn shell, and he said, with a hint of enthusiasm, that he might come by later.

When we finished, I wished Jen and Jason a good day and headed to the store to stock up on junk food. Once I reached the snack aisle, I surreptitiously examined my belly, and for a moment, I considered forgoing the bag of chips I had planned to buy in favor of something healthier. The moment passed, however, and I grabbed a large bag of Doritos and a Coke before making my way home. Maybe dating beautiful women was out of reach for a guy like me, but beautiful snacking was not.

Later that evening, I was surprised by a knock on my door. I guess the lure of the PS4 was stronger than Jason's social anxiety, so I invited him in to try it. It turned out that he was pretty good at Call of Duty ... but I still kicked his ass. I wouldn't want him to think I would go easy on him just because he was a kid.

What I thought would be a one-time visit soon became a regular occurrence. When I got home from work or on the weekends, Jason would stop by to see if I could play with him. Sunday mornings, Jen would take him to church, but once they got home, it was back to gaming. Occasionally, Jen would stop by to make sure he wasn't being too much of a nuisance, but she seemed to have her own worries, and the last thing I wanted to do was add to them.

******

Playoff football was a big deal for my friends and me. It wasn't as big as college game days in the fall, but it was important enough to merit a gathering, and the inevitable bantering ensued. I invited my best friends, Ted and Sue, over to watch the games while hanging out on my low-end sofa and watching my overly large and decidedly high-end TV.

Ted and Sue were, at first glance, a strange pair. Ted was a literal mountain of a man, standing well over six-foot-five and weighing over 300 pounds. He was the starting left tackle on my high school football team and the most significant factor in our success. Unfortunately, Ted learned in college that he had the back of a much smaller and lighter man, and after several painful surgeries, he gave up on his dream of playing in the pros. He did, however, get a degree before moving home to become the largest accountant in the entire state of Georgia. He was also a kind, thoughtful, and generous friend.

In contrast, his wife Sue was a pixie of a woman standing barely five feet tall and weighing less than Ted's left leg. I had dated Sue for two years into my senior year of high school. If I am entirely honest, she was my first and, to date, only love. Sadly, although Sue loved (and loves) me deeply, it was never a romantic love; it was more like what one feels for one's little brother. It also became painfully clear to me, and everyone else with eyes in their head, that Ted and Sue were madly in love, and my relationship with Sue was the only thing keeping them apart. They loved me too much to act on their feelings, but their misery at being apart was palpable.

They never said or did anything inappropriate, and when we hung out together, they stayed as far apart as they could, trying to avoid making eye contact. Despite their good intentions, however, their feelings for each other couldn't help but shine through the cracks. This love triangle continued for a few months until I couldn't stand it any longer. I broke up with Sue and then called Ted to tell him to ask her out, or I would come over and kick his oversized butt. If she wasn't going to be mine, she had better be his.

The next few months were rough for me. Although I was happy for Ted and Sue, my jealousy and loneliness made it impossible for me to be around them and share in their joy. We stopped hanging out entirely, and I spent all my spare time at the shop, working on the Shelby, which was close to being done.

We might have permanently drifted apart if not for my father's passing. The moment they heard what had happened to my dad, they drove out to the acreage and didn't leave my side until after the funeral. They were my rocks, my islands of sanity and love in a sea of devastation. We have been inseparable ever since.

Sue had done her best over the years to find someone who would love me the way I loved her. She was a shockingly effective wing-woman, and many nights out at the local bar ended with her convincing a pretty young thing to take a chance on me. No one had ever replaced her in my heart, though, and for the longest time, I thought no one ever would. I had made my peace with it. The two best people I knew loved me deeply—they just loved each other more.

Partway through the first game, I heard a knock on the door. Jason was wondering if we could play some games on the PS4 together, but I explained the sanctity of the NFL playoffs and invited him in to watch with us instead. I introduced him to Ted and Sue and fetched him a soda from the kitchen.

After watching for a few minutes, Sue tried to include Jason in our ongoing banter.

"So, are you a big football fan?"

Jason closed his eyes and visibly deflated.

"Not really. My dad was a quarterback in high school, and he dreamed I would follow in his footsteps. He never really forgave me for being terrible at it. That's why he left my mom."

"I'm sure that that wasn't the reason," Sue said kindly, feeling bad for inadvertently broaching such a painful subject.

"Well, the night he left, he yelled at my mom, calling her a cheating whore because any son of his would be great at football, not an uncoordinated r-word. Then he took the car and our savings and left."

"Shit, that's tough, man," Ted said, shaking his head in sympathy.

"Well, sorry to say it, but your dad sounds like an asshole. But football is awesome. Hang out and watch the games with us, and you'll see."

Sue just shook her head and went back to her book.

Jason stayed, and as the game progressed, he became increasingly focused on the action. He started asking questions about the players and positions.

"Why does this player move across the formation before the play? How does that player know who to block? What is the quarterback saying before each play, and what does it mean?"