After getting home, I was ready to celebrate my early workday ending with Mum. Quickly, I threw my extra money in a drawer in my room before looking for her. I ended up finding the woman in her room, sewing something together.

“Is that my dress?” I asked enthusiastically.

“It will be,” she giggled. “Right now it’s just a couple sleeves.”

“When do you think it’ll be done?” I pestered. I couldn’t help it. How could I not be excited for my first real dress?!

“Well, I have to finish the initial dress first, then have you try it on, then make any adjustments from there to make sure it fits perfectly. That’ll take a while on its own. Then after that, we can try to use some washcloths and spare fabric to add some padding to the chest of the corset. When I’m done, you’ll be able to wear this dress comfortably around the house.”

“You’re making me even more excited for it,” I whined. “Is Dad home yet?”

“Nope,” she shook her head. “I’ll be starting supper in a few minutes though, if you’d like to lend a hand with that.”

“I’d like that a lot,” I smiled.

If I helped Mum with dinner, Dad couldn’t complain about me not helping him with whatever nebulous task he’d ask me to do as soon as he walked through the door. And well, dinner was usually the woman’s job, so… I wouldn’t argue with helping. She just had me chop some vegetables for the stew, add them when it was time, and stir the pot while she continued sewing in the living room.

“Dinner smells good,” Dad remarked, walking through the front door and letting out a satisfied sigh. “Is that my wife’s famous beef stew?”

“Adam helped too,” Mum smiled. “She chopped the vegetables and has been stirring dinner the whole time.”

“You mean he has been helping, Martha,” he laughed. “I know you’re tired, but our son hasn’t magically become a daughter.”

Did those kinds of comments hurt me? Yeah, I would be lying if I said they didn’t affect me on some level, even if I knew they shouldn’t. What he said seemed to even irk Mum just as much as it did me.

“If you’re going to talk like that, Mark, maybe you can go down the road and find dinner in some other house.”

“Martha, you know I was only joking.”

“I think you should apologize to our child,” she insisted.

“What?” he frowned. 

Oh boy, that wasn’t the best thing to suggest. People in America think we’re all friendly, but my dad is the Canadian who was born without the ability to apologize. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sincerely say the words “I’m sorry” to anyone. Dad wears the French-Canadian spite on his sleeve.

“You heard me,” Mum said, standing her ground. “Apologize to Adam for all the spiteful things you’ve said to him. Otherwise, you can eat what’s left of dinner.”

“I won’t be doing that,” Dad said, narrowing his eyes.

“Then no dinner for you,” she shrugged.

“Why would I apologize to him?!” he howled, pointing at me. “There’s dozens of families with three or four strong, hard working, and already wed sons! Meanwhile we’re stuck with one lousy son who fails at meeting every definition of a man!”

“Mark! Enough!”

“If you want to entertain him, then fine,” he spat. “But when you let go, that boy isn’t going to know how to swim. And then you can live with knowing that you just fed into his fantasies instead of preparing him. I’m going to go work. I don’t think I want to eat with him anymore.”

Leave it to Dad to make me feel levels of shame that I didn’t think existed. As he stormed out to his back shed, I just looked down into the beef stew. I wish I was normal. I really wish I was. I wish I could just be the perfect desired son he always wanted. Doesn’t he know if I could be anything but what I was, I wouldn’t hesitate to be it…?

“Are you ok, um… Adam?” she awkwardly asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We really need to get you another name.”

“I’m fine…” I sighed, mindlessly stirring around the liquid in the pot and trying not to think about how much of a disappointment I was.

“Honey, don’t be discouraged by him,” Mum comforted. “How about you wash some bowls since dinner looks just about ready?”

“Okay…”

Dinner was uncomfortably quiet with just me and Mum at the dinner table. True to his word, Dad was working outside. We could see him splitting wood, driving the axe right into the stump below the pieces. As I ate, I wondered if he would have to replace the stump, or if the axe would break first. Near the end of dinner, Dad ended up coming back in just to grab his coat and march towards the door.

“Mark, where in the world are you going?” Mum demanded.

“I’m going out,” he said coldly. “I’ll be back later.”

“Mark, get back here,” Mum stomped. “Are you going to walk out into the freezing night because your pride is too big to issue an apology?”

“I’ve got nothing to apologize for,” he grunted, walking out the door and being followed by Mum, leaving me alone. 

I decided to wash Mum’s empty bowl, setting it back on the table just in case she wanted more. Since she was taking forever to get back, I decided to get seconds without her. Honestly I wasn’t really hungry, but I was feeling understandably stressed from the whole night, and, well… I might’ve been relatively spindly and weak, but secretly I was guilty of being a stress eater. Only Mrs. Lada really consciously knew about it, and that’s because her candy stock would feel it whenever Dad was particularly verbally abusive… And then my pay would feel it too.

Even after I finished my second portion of dinner, Mum wasn’t back. I wasn’t worried about her though; Mum knew how to take care of herself. Maybe I should’ve stopped eating all the dinner, but I didn’t. Once I was done with my third helping, I was just kind of eating because I didn’t know what else to do that would comfort me.

“Just sit down and stay calm,” Mum sighed, bringing Dad back inside right as I finished my fourth bowl.

“Who the hell ate all the stew?!” Dad exclaimed, looking into the pot at the one or two more bowls worth left. “What’s your problem, boy?!”

“I-I’m sorry-”

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?! Men like me have to do hard work on our feet every day, but you-”

“Adam, how about you just go to sleep early?” Mum suggested.

I took the offer without another word. I just wanted the night to be over. Maybe tomorrow I could ask Mrs. Lada if I could visit for dinner. Worst she could say is no. Or maybe she’d agree and still make me pay for it.

*   *   *   *   *

The next morning, I woke up feeling just so, so uncomfortable. I had never woken up feeling full before. I barely managed to force myself out of bed, and the walk to the candy shop took longer than normal. It was bad enough that I didn’t even accept Mum’s breakfast. Dad was fine eating it instead though. I suppose he needed it since his dinner was cut short. By the time I made it into the shop, Mrs. Lada had been open for maybe twenty or thirty minutes.

“Murphy, you better have a good reason for being late,” she scolded.

“I just feel a bit sick,” I told her. “A bit of a hard time moving about is all.”

“I don’t want you sick around my candy,” she frowned. “Stay in the front and do business with customers again. I’ll keep making the stock in the back.”

“But-”

“That wasn’t a request, Adam.”

Reluctantly, I grabbed my plain brown apron and once again took my place behind the till. Mrs. Lada probably just didn’t want the boring and tedious position all day. Luckily, not much activity passed for most of the day anyway. Tuesdays and Thursdays were slow for business since most people either got paid on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday and immediately spent money, or waited until weekend excursions. Every time I debated taking a break and closing the shop for half an hour or so, a customer would walk in and make me internally scream.

Around noontime, we got another surprise visit from three of the Hawthorne siblings, which was particularly odd since both Reginald and Angel were there despite having bought sweets just yesterday… Then there was the other sister with them: Beatrice. There were a lot of bad women in the world, but I think New York as a whole agreed that she was the worst of them all. For years she had been terrorizing the city with the large green snake that coiled around her black-clothed waist. You could take every terrible person you knew and roll them up, and you’d only have a fraction of Beatrice. Known for being spiteful, labeled as unmarriable, and is avoided by anyone who can help it.

“Adam!” Reginald exclaimed, waving from the door. “I’m going to need more winter mints for my Maxine!”

“Didn’t you come in yesterday and buy them all?” I asked, exasperated.

“Yes, but I need more for my gift to her.”

“Reginald, you scoundrel!” Mrs. Lada shouted, stomping out of the back. “If you’re going to buy everything at once, you can march your gold-trimmed tailcoats out of my shop!”

“I just need the winter mints,” he explained.

“You bought them all yesterday, remember?”

“I trust you can make more though, right?”

“It would take days to finish, depending on how much you wanted,” she leered. “And it would be quite costly.”

“As always, I assure you that price is not an issue,” he remarked, flipping a coin between his fingers. “Can we talk out a deal?”

“Come to the back and we can talk,” Mrs. Lada grumbled, gesturing and letting Reginald follow her to the back room where she was making candy.

“Do you have anything, um… interesting?” Angel asked. “Something I might’ve not had before, or that’s a bit rare?”

“We have English Toffee somewhere on that wall,” I offered, pointing to one side of the shop.

“Ooo, ok. Thanks!” she smiled, bouncing over to a rack of candy jars.

With everyone else occupied, that left just the last Hawthorne sibling in the shop, Beatrice, to slither her way towards me. She gave me a toxic glare as she set her hands on the countertop, letting the snake on her slither onto the surface and wander to the shelves. Even if I knew the snake wouldn’t strike unless she told it to, it still scared the shit out of me. Looking at her up close, Beatrice’s face was pale and gaunt, made to look even more daunting by her black dress. Most of the Hawthorne’s were nice, but Beatrice actually was the rich person who would ruin your life for the fun of it just because you accidentally spilled water on her.

“How can I help you?” I asked politely.

“We’re not here for me,” she retorted, glancing around with an absolutely disgusted look on her face. “It’s Angel’s birthday, and Reginald also wants more candy to fatten up the woman he wants to call his wife. Marrying her is going to be a huge mistake though. I know her type, and she’s definitely just in it for his money. Nobody in my family seems to-”

“Um, Ms. Hawthorne,” I interrupted, clearing my throat. “Your, um-”

“What?!” she snapped, snarling at me.

“Your snake needs to pay before eating the candy,” I said nervously, pointing to the green serpent slithering into a glass jar.

“Fluffy, darling, get out of that nasty candy,” Beatrice sighed, scooping up her pet snake. “You can’t afford those calories. You’ll become a chubby noodle.”

“Can I help you or your pet find-”

“Don’t refer to him as just ‘my pet’ you cur,” she hissed. “Call him by his proper name, as a proper Hawthorne.”

“Can I help you or… Fluffy find anything this afternoon?”

“Does it look like I eat candy?” Beatrice sneered, letting loose a condescending laugh. Honestly if you had to ask me, it didn’t look like she ate anything at all, but I suppose that’s none of my business. I don’t know why she was treating me like the silly one when she walked into a candy shop with zero intention of buying candy.

“Adam, could I buy this whole jar?” Angel asked, bringing the entire glass jar of black licorice to the counter with a beautifully wonderful shine in her eyes. 

“Sure, as long as you have the money with you,” I nodded. “Minus the jar, we need to keep that.”

“When Reginald comes out, I promise he’ll pay on my behalf!”

“Angel, your birthday is no reason to indulge in gluttony of the highest order,” Beatrice criticized. “Can you not control yourself?”

I don’t know why her family would keep Beatrice around if all she did was try to make them feel bad. Maybe they thought she’ll come around one day? A bar of gold could also fall through my roof one day, but I won’t be holding my breath.

“Beatrice, don’t ruin our sister’s birthday,” Reginald shamed, coming out of the backroom behind me. “You’ve got so many more days of the year to try and spoil, but not this one.”

“Whatever.”

“Maybe she’s just jealous it’s not her birthday,” Angel teased.

“Why would I be jealous? Age means wrinkles and fat and unfairly losing all the beauty that I worked so hard to get.”

“Maybe some years would make you less bitter,” Reginald commented. “Let us buy whatever Angel wants and go back home. I’m sure Mother and Father are waiting there with a surprise for you, Angel!”

“Yayy!”

“I’ll be buying whatever Angel wants, then a down payment on the winter mints that I want you and Rena to make for my Maxine,” Reginald smiled to me. I think the most daunting part of that statement was Angel’s pitifully eager face that was going to have to watch me count each piece of licorice by hand.

“Because Max needs to be even fatter,” Beatrice mumbled. “Her kind doesn’t even deserve to be in the same room as-”

“Say one more bad word about my love and I’ll make sure Mum reprimands you,” he warned.

I guess that was a pretty heavy threat, since she remained quiet and pet her snake while I counted the licorice. Though, I think Mrs. Lada should’ve just done it since she was counting them all over my shoulder anyway. When I finally finished and gave Angel her candy (she even paid extra just for the jar to take it home in), the Hawthorne siblings advanced towards the door. Of course, Beatrice couldn’t help but let out one last comment.

“Have a good evening,” Reginald wished.

“Go eat something healthy,” Beatrice jeered. “You both just look like you work in a candy store with no restraint.”

Without even giving us time to ponder the sheer generosity of her advice, the siblings closed the door behind them, leaving Mrs. Lada and I in the shop alone.

“The Hawthorne family are usually fine customers, but God, Adam, I hate that Hell-born fussock of a woman.”

“I hope she doesn’t come back,” I sighed.

“By the way, Reginald needs winter mints soon, so you’re working late every day this week to help me make them.”

“Oh, yay.”