Fucked Up Family:>Ep1
INTRODUCTION: A family camping trip gets out of control.
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As James Campbell looked over his shoulder to back the car out of the driveway, he glanced at his three children, sitting primly in the backseat. It made him sad. As serene as the siblings seemed in the moment, James knew the trio would be at each other’s throats before they even got to the highway.
His oldest daughter, Alexis — long dark hair hanging down to her chest and deep green eyes — was looking out the window like she was planning her escape route. Her younger brother, Austin, was on the other side. He had blond hair like his Mom, close-cropped, and blue eyes like his Dad. He stared out the other window, almost a mirror of his oldest sister. If the two of them knew they were matching each other, they’d probably move simply to spite each other, James thought.
Only his youngest — Molly, just turned 18 — smiled slightly at her Dad as he looked back. Molly’s eyes were blue like his, but so pale they were practically gray. Like Austin, she had her mother’s golden hair, but it fell in ringlets all the way down to the middle of her back.
James sighed and tried to concentrate on driving. They’d just bought the new SUV. It made way more sense for caravanning three older children, but maneuvering the thing was a bit of a production. He felt more like a school bus driver than a Dad.
James felt a hand on his leg and looked over. His wife, Christine, smiled at him warmly. Unlike most 39-year-old moms, she had actually slimmed down compared to when they’d first met. Christine proudly proclaimed she had less than 15% body fat and, boy, you could tell just by looking at her. Even her hair — blonde like Austin and Molly, but straight and jaw-length short — looked almost sharp. James smiled back at his wife. She might look tough, but he knew she was still the kind, caring woman he’d met in high school.
James had been a football jock and Christine was a science geek, but, somehow, they’d found each other. The couple was always careful, of course, but inexplicably Christine got pregnant anyway. The doctors said something about James having ‘unusually potent sperm.’
Christine was devastated. She was still in high school and her whole life was in front of her. But giving up the baby didn’t occur to either of them. Instead they quickly got married. Christine stayed in school and James went off to get a job.
They named the first baby Alexis. Austin and Molly soon followed. The third pregnancy was the final straw and Christine had her tubes tied. It was safer for everyone that way.
Despite the setback of having children young, both parents were extraordinarily successful. Christine was one of the leading ophthalmologists in the state and James was a high-level executive for a major pharmaceutical firm. The kids hadn’t suffered for their parents’ careers, either. Alexis, Austin, and Molly were all attractive, intelligent, successful children with bright futures ahead of them.
Yet for some reason James still felt oddly unfulfilled. He’d just turned 40 and, for the first time he could remember, his age was weighing on him. Maybe it was that the kids — now 21, 19, and 18 respectively — were moving out of the house. Although, the way they’d been acting lately, he was starting to wish they’d just go already. We need to get a dog, he thought.
“You seem distracted, hon,” Christine said, her hand still resting on her husband’s leg. Her fingers lightly teasing at his hair, “Everything OK? You want me to drive?”
They’d only gone a few feet down the road. The campsite was still hours in front of them. James already felt tired. But he smiled and shook his head. Something about giving up the wheel felt like surrendering. So he made himself sit up a little straighter, took a big gulp of his coffee, and focused on the road.
The car was actually quiet for a while and James began to relax. Maybe they would have that nice family trip after all. But as soon as he pulled onto the highway, just as he’d feared, the kids started arguing.
“Stop touching me, perv!” Alexis said, slapping at her brother.
“How can I be touching you if I’m all the way over here?” Austin said, slapping back.
“I don’t know, maybe you’re using your extra-long perv fingers or something,” Alexis said. She reached across the seat and gave her brother a good, hard pinch on the arm.
“Or maybe you’re just extra fucking crazy,” Austin said and tried to pinch his eldest sister back.
“Ow! That was me, you jerk!” Molly said, slapping her brother.
“Stop hurting your baby sister!” Alexis said, and hit him, too.
“Moooom Daaaad, the girls are picking on me,” Austin said.
“God…” Christine said, turning around to glare at her children, “This is the last trip we’re going to have together for a long time. Can’t you all, like, get along for a little while?”
“How much further do we have to go, James?” Alexis asked.
James ground his teeth and gripped the wheel tightly. This was his eldest daughter’s newest thing: calling her parents by their first names. Her way, in her words, of being ‘adult.’
“Mommy and Daddy are baby words,” Alexis had said.
Christine told him it was only a phase and he should ignore it. But it made James nuts and Alexis seemed to know it, which only made her do it more. What was so wrong with calling him Dad, seriously?
“It’s another two hours, Alexis,” James said.
“Ugh, James I told you I want you to call me Lexi,” Alexis said.
“Maybe if that was your name he’d call you that, Sis,” Austin said.
“At least I’m not named for some stupid stoner town in fucking Texas, Bro,” Alexis said. And then the arguing in the backseat started all over again.
James rubbed his eyes like he was trying to grind them out of his head. He’d planned this lake trip for months. One last family trip together before they all abandoned him to old-man-hood. The trunk of the new car (And the seats. And the roof) was filled with new tents, camping equipment, fishing rods… At one point, James had joked that he felt like he was buying a brand-new life. Now he wondered if that was true.
And, worse, if he had failed.
*
Christine thought the fighting would get better once everyone settled in for the ride, but, if anything, the kids only bickered more. Worse, her husband seemed to be physically pained by every angry word. Christine swore she could hear his teeth crunching over the roar of the engine. She reached over and patted his leg again.
“You’re so tense, hon,” she said, “And you’ve got such low energy. Don’t worry, I think I have just the thing.”
The whole car groaned, James included. The family was well indoctrinated on the nature of Christine’s health program. It had started after her residency. After all those crazy hours (not to mention the three kids), she’d become addicted to caffeine and junk food and it showed. She’d found herself flabby in all sorts of places, started getting acne like she was 15 again, just hated herself. The person she saw in the mirror.
So, Christine started exercising a little. Then a lot. She changed her whole diet. It was constant work, but she was in better shape now than she’d been in her entire life. But Christine wasn’t content to keep her new lifestyle to herself. She felt so much better and she wanted her whole family to feel the same way.
She loved that her husband still had an athlete’s body, and with her help, he’d kept himself trim. The couple both worked out together and their competitive natures kept things fresh. Sure, James had some crinkles around his eyes and his hair was going silver at the sides, but otherwise he could easily have been mistaken for ten years younger.
Their children were all also in excellent shape, though Molly had put on a little baby fat through puberty and was still sloughing some of it off. Still, Christine thought, why feel good when you could feel even better?
So, the whole family had done crossfit together and went paleo for a while. Did all kinds of cleanses and took special supplements. Christine thought of herself as a kind of family chemist, experimenting with different combinations till she found the perfect one.
“You all complain about the pills now,” Christine said, “But when you have twice the energy and none of the mopes, you’ll be thanking me.”
“Or we’ll all be crapping our brains out,” Alexis said, “Remember the cranberry cleanse?”
“Oh God,” Austin said, “I still get nauseous whenever I see a bottle of Ocean Spray.”
Well, Christine thought, at least the kids were agreeing on something. Even if it meant they were all united against her.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.