Chapter 6: How Could Any of This Be Right?
The following Monday, Lantern Heart sat at her dining room table staring at the cellphone she was holding in her hand. Her mother and her sister were seated with her, Flare Burst holding her free hand. The two sisters gave each other a look of determination before Lantern dialed a number on her phone and held it up to her ear.
The phone rang a few times before a feminine answered, “Hello, Hard and Fast Legal, Autumn speaking.”
“Yes, hello, I would like to speak to Fast Lane. Tell him that it’s Lantern Heart and that it’s urgent,” Lantern kept her voice steady as she spoke even though her hand was starting to shake.
“Okay. Please hold.”
After the longest 2-minute hold in Lantern Heart’s life, the man Lantern was trying to reach finally picked up the phone.
“Lantern Heart,” he gruffly began, “I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t contact each other anymore after the divorce.
What could possibly be so important that you would call me right now? And on my work number at that?”
Lantern squeezed her sister’s hand as she readied herself for what she’s about to say. “Fast,” she began after taking a breath. “I, I’m meeting with an attorney this week to draw a will. I know you said that you didn’t want anything to do with me or the kids after the split, but you’re still their father. It’s only right that you have a say in what happens to them if anything bad happens to me.”
“In other words, you want to know if I’m okay with you leaving them with me if you die.”
Lantern bit her lip to hold the tears back as she continued. “Yes.”
“I said it 10 years ago, and I’m saying it now. They have nothing to do with me. Leave them with whoever else you want. Is that all?”
“That—that’s everything important that have to say to you, yes,” she replied as her voice began to hitch. She soon found herself listening to nothing but the dial tone on the other side.
Lantern Heart hung up and set the phone on the table as she quietly began to cry. Her sobs became louder the more freely her tears flowed.
“Why didn’t you tell him about the cancer?” Flare asked her sister, taking Lantern’s hand into both of hers.
Lantern stopped crying long enough to spit out her answer, “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Birdie got up and pulled her heartbroken daughter into a hug as she continued to cry. Unbeknownst to the three women, the two boys had been listening from the hall.
That Friday at sundown, Flash Sentry sat at the picnic table in the clearing at Stardust Point with only his brother and his dog for company. His phone was in his hand, and he was contemplating whether to call the number that he found over the internet.
“You gonna do it, Big Bro?” Base asked as he scratched Banana behind the ear.
Flash sighed as he rested his head on his free hand. “This is going to be the first time that I’ve talked to Dad in years,” he said to his brother. “What if I call him and we both get angry and say things that we regret?”
First Base thought about what his brother had just said as he stared at Flash staring at the phone. “I don’t know what else to tell you, Bro. You either call him or you don’t.”.
Flash took a breath, gritted his teeth, and called the number.
“Hello, Hard and Fast Legal, this is Autumn speaking,” a feminine voice answered.
“Hello, I would like to speak to Fast Lane please. It’s important,” Flash spoke into the phone. As he was speaking, Base switched from scratching Banana’s ears to rubbing the dog’s belly.
“Please hold.”
Flash took a few deep breaths while he waited to be put through. As he waited, a mental image of his mother crying on Monday evening crept to the front of his mind. Flash wished that Monday had been the only time that he had seen his mom cry over his dad, but it wasn’t. He had seen his mom cry plenty of other times as a kid, and most of the time his father had been involved.
Now that Flash really thought about it, he had absolutely no idea just what kind of a man his father is or was. He didn’t remember his dad being present for much of anything even back when his parents were still together. In fact, most of Flash’s memories of his father were either of the man blowing them off or getting into screaming matches with his mom which ultimately ended with his mom crying.
“Hello,” a man’s voice said over the phone.
“Hi, Dad. It’s Flash,” Flash replied.
For a while, the phone remained silent. Then, Fast Lane spoke again, “Flash who?”
“Flash Sentry? Your oldest son?” he answered, biting back a growl.
“Flash?” the man on the other side said, sounding surprised. “What happened to your voice?”
“It got lower,” Flash bluntly pointed out.
“Oh.” Another awkward silence filled the air, and again Fast Lane broke it. “Alright, what do you want, Flash? Did your mother put you up into calling me?”
“No, I called on my own. There’s something that I think you need to know.”Flash’s blood boiled at the tone that his father was using on him, but he tried to remain calm anyway.“Mom,” he began before sighing, “Mom has cancer.”
More silence. “What?” Judging by tone of Fast Lane’s voice, Flash might as well have told him that the refrigerator sprouted legs and ran away with the kitchen sink.
“Mom’s. Got. Cancer,” Flash reemphasized. “Not only that, she’s also dying of it.”
Yet another long silence.
“Look, I don’t know what happened between you and Mom, but if there’s anything that you regret saying or doing to her at all, you don’t have a lot of time to make it right. If you want to tell her that you’re sorry, you’ve got to do it now,” Flash continued, trying not to sound like he was begging.
Again, silence.
“Dad?” Flash called out. Only silence answered him followed by the sound of the dial tone.
With a pronounced scowl, Flash set his phone on top of the table and clutched his head by the temples.
“I’m guessing that the conversation didn’t go well,” First Base softly stuttered out, holding the dog worriedly.
Flash didn’t reply but jumped up, spun around, and screamed to the heavens. When he had finished, his chested was heaving forcefully as hot, angry pants came out of his mouth.
“YOU ARE A HORRIBLE FATHER! YOU KNOW THAT?!” Flash yelled at horizon before collapsing to the ground. He pulled his knees to his chest and touched his forehead to his knees.
Banana jumped out of First Base’s arms and ran up to Flash, placing his paws on Flash’s legs. Flash looked up and turned towards Banana. The dog looked back at him with large eyes and dropping ears, whining sympathetically.
“What?” Flash spat bitterly at the dog. “You gonna leave us to fend for ourselves too?”
Banana whined as he squeezed himself onto Flash’s lap. He whined again, rubbing his head on Flash’s chest. Flash closed his eyes and sighed as he wrapped his arms around the dog.
“Hey, man, you okay? You seem upset,” a low voice said from directly behind him. Flash turned around and saw a familiar purple puppy giving him a concerned look.
“Spike?” he uttered.
“Spike!” The boys heard a shrill, feminine voice call from the direction of the trail that led to the clearing. They turned and saw Twilight running towards the clearing followed by Cadance.
First Base turned and gave his brother a confused look. “How do we keep meeting her? Just how?” After seeing the somewhat offended look Twilight was giving him, he said to her, “Not that we’re not glad to see you.”
“Um, hi,” Flash hesitantly greeted Twilight.
“Hi,” she said back.
“So,” Flash began as Twilight bent down to pick up Spike.“What brings the three of you here?”
“Future sisters-in-law plus puppy bonding time,” Cadance replied as she and Twilight took a seat at the picnic table. “We decided to have it out here for some reason. I don’t know why, but there’s something about this place that’s just wonderful for talking or clearing your head. It could be the sky, the space, the fresh air, a number of things, but enough about us.
What are you boys up to?”
“Big Bro just talked to Dad for the first time in 10 years,” First Base deadpanned.
“Yeah, we kind of heard him screaming on the way up here,” Twilight uneasily replied before turning to face Flash. “Are you having problems with your dad?”
“I just can’t believe it,” Flash shouted, still angry, as he got up and returned to the table. “I can’t. I mean, I understand if he doesn’t want anything to do with Mom, but his kids are about to become orphans, and he’s just going to move on with his life as if we didn’t exist. What kind of a father—?,” Flash clenched his teeth and let out a livid hiss, “What kind of a man would do something like that?”
For a while, nobody said a word because they didn’t know what to say. Twilight sighed and place a hand on Flash’s shoulder while Banana jumped up and once again lay on Flash’s lap.
“Actually, I lied,” Flash spoke again. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand what it is about Mom that my dad hates. Mom was good to him the whole time they were married. Sure, she had gotten mad at him a few times, but she had always treated him well. I just—,” Flash sighed again, “I just don’t understand what went wrong.”
“Maybe being treated well wasn’t good enough for him,” Spike scoffed, the bitter tone in his voice unmistakable. The boys turned to him in confusion as he continued, “Maybe he didn’t know just how good of a thing he had, or maybe he did but just didn’t appreciate it enough to hold on to it.”
Base raised an eyebrow at the puppy, “Are we still talking about our dad?”
“I don’t know,” Spike shrugged. “Flash talking about your dad just sounded a lot like Twilight talking about Timber.”
“Spike!” Twilight scolded her dog.
“Who’s Timber?” Base asked Twilight.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Twilight muttered in annoyance.
“Then again, what would I know about relationships,” Spike continued. “I haven’t wanted to be with a girl since that weird visit to the vet.”
Banana barked twice as if in response to Spike’s last statement.
“You too, huh?” Spike replied to his fellow canine who barked in confirmation.
“Umm, Twilight, if you don’t mind me asking,” Flash said to the girl, “why did you and Timber break up?”
Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. She looked like she wanted to talk about anything other than the break-up but answered Flash’s question anyway. “Applejack caught him checking out other girls while they were lifeguarding together last summer. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to think I was clingy or insecure, but then Applejack told me that girls started flirting with him and that he flirted back. When I confronted him about it, he didn’t deny anything, but he didn’t seem sorry either. He said, ‘I was just having a little fun. It’s not like I was cheating on you with them.’ Then, I got mad and told him that we were done.”
For the second time that evening, nobody knew how to respond. Then, Flash placed his hand on top of Twilight’s. Twilight didn’t know why, but she could have sworn that her heart had skipped a beat when Flash touched her hand.
Twilight turned to the older of the two boys and asked him, “Do you think I was being too hard on him?”
Flash looked back at her and raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“Do you think I was being too jealous?” she clarified. “I mean, maybe Timber didn’t mean anything unfaithful with the flirting. Maybe he was just having fun. I-I just don’t know. I just never expected that he would do that. I always imagined that being in a relationship with a guy would be like, like,” Twilight paused, trying to find the right words to express what she had wanted, “like what my parents have or like what my brother and Cadance have.”
“That’s not a bad thing to want,” Cadance spoke. “Fidelity is an essential part of any relationship, and if you ask me, that Timber guy shouldn’t have given you reasons to question his.”
As First Base listened to the conversation, he stared off into the horizon in thought. Then, he turned to his brother and asked, “Big Bro, do you think Dad might have,” he paused, and his face winced as if he was afraid of the words that were about to come out of his mouth, “cheated?”
“Cheated?” Flash repeated, confused.
“I mean, I’m not saying for sure, but you remember what it was like when he was still around better than I do. Do you think he might have cheated?”
Flash stared at the table as he searched through his memories. “I remember him and Mom fighting a lot. Mom used to say things like ‘How could you lie to me?,’ ‘Do we mean anything to you at all?,’ ‘Just what kind of an example are you setting for the boys?,” and I can’t remember the rest. I also remember Dad saying ‘This isn’t what it looks like’ and ‘Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like, but it didn’t mean anything.’”
Flash’s eyes widened, and his voice faltered as he spoke the last four words. Then, he covered his face with his hands and groaned, “Oh my gosh.”
“Flash,” Cadance said to the high school-aged boy, causing him to look up at her. “I was just wondering. Who helped your mom raise you after your dad left? I know your aunt and your grandmother are helping her out now that she’s sick, but did anyone,” she paused, looking for an appropriate word, “father you guys after your dad left?”
Flash sighed and then answered, “Grandpa.” He placed his hand on his chest and seemed to rub something that was underneath his shirt. Then, he recounted, “Before the divorce, our grandparents had lived out of town, but we visited each other a lot, so First Base and I were close to them. After the divorce, they moved in with us to help Mom take care of us, and Grandpa, well, Grandpa was the dad our dad should have been. He taught me how to play the guitar, and he taught First Base how to throw a ball, but the most important thing that he taught me,” Flash pause as he swallowed, eyes glistening, “was how to be the kind of man he was. He used to say, ‘If you see someone who needs help, the best thing you can do is to stop and try to help them. The least you can do is to ask if they need your help.’”
“Your grandfather sounds like a good man. I wish I could have met him,” Cadance replied. “What happened to him?”
The two brothers looked at each other. First Base could tell that his brother was about to crack any second, so he decided to answer.
“He got Alzheimer’s about, I think, 4 years ago,” said Base. “It wasn’t so bad at first. He just kept forgetting things a few times, but then, he got worse, so Aunt Flare retired from the military to help take care of him. Then, he died about two years ago.” He turned his eyes towards the table before continuing, “While everyone was asleep. So, we didn’t get to say good-bye to him. That was rough.”
Flash nodded in agreement before reaching into his shirt and pulling something out. What he pulled out was a ball chain with a pair of dog tags that he was wearing around his neck. He showed them to Twilight and Cadance.
“Grandpa was a combat medic back in the day. These used to be his,” he said to the two females in their company while rubbing his eyes.
First Base face hardened as he suddenly slammed his fists against the table. “This isn’t fair!” he cried, looking like he was about to cry. “We already went through this with Grandpa. Why do we have to do it again with Mom?”
Flash sighed, rubbing his fingers on his temples. “I sure wish I knew,” he answered.
Banana whined empathetically.
“Yeah, I don’t like it when my humans are upset either,” Spike agreed with him.
Twilight and Flash began to pet their respective dogs, causing the dogs to pant happily. Then, Banana jumped on the table, walked up to First Base, and rubbed his head against the younger boy’s cheek. Despite his earlier outburst, Base found himself giggling at the dog.
Twilight turned towards Flash and met his eyes. “It doesn’t get easier the second time, does it?”
“Not a bit,” Flash answered with a sad smile.
“Listen,” Cadance began, getting everyone’s attention. “I know you boys have gone through a lot and that you’re going through a tough time again now, but I just want you to know that you’re not going through it alone. I know people say it so often that it doesn’t really mean anymore, but if you ever need to talk or vent or anything, we’re here for you.”
Twilight showed her agreement by placing her hand on Flash’s shoulder and nodding. Flash smiled back at her. For the second time that day, Twilight could have sworn that her heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t know why we keep meeting you,” First Base said to Twilight, “but I’m starting to feel really glad that we do.”
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This part hit really close to home for me.
8984700
Oh, I'm sorry.
8984807
It's okay. It's something I have dealt with.
And I am bailing.
Sorry, but I really hate the "Flash has a shitty father" headcanon. The headcanon dad I made for Flash was made as a fierce counter to this.
It's a shame, too. Up until this chapter, this was a pretty good story.
I know what it's like to lose the people you love. I lost my great grandma when I was in seventh grade. About a year later my great uncle died from liver cancer. It hurt. It still does.
9605619
I'm sorry to hear that.
By the way, the last guy who commented on this chapter really hated my headcanon. Do you have a problem with it? I mean, I've seen both types of headcanons, and they honestly both work. This one is just the one I prefer as depressing as it is.