#FlashFictionMagic: Empty/Full

Just home from college on a Friday evening, Grace entered the kitchen to find a tower of dirty dishes on the counter. She wanted a drink of water, but there didn’t seem to be a clean glass left in the place. 

“Uh, Dad?” 

“Oh, hey,” Dave said, padding into the kitchen in his sock feet and kissing Grace’s cheek. “We’re just, um –” 

Grace’s stepmom Fern poked her head around the corner. “Hi, sweet girl,” she said. “Excuse the mess. Your dad won’t load the dishwasher, and I refuse to do it for him.” She smirked.

“Okay…” Grace zeroed in on a glass that seemed fairly easy to extract from the pile. She picked up the plate that was balanced on top of it. Stepping on the foot pedal to open the garbage can, Grace went to start scraping debris from the plate into the trash, but she stopped when she realized the can was full, and its contents distinctly stinky. 

Eyebrows raised, she looked to her father. Seriously? 

Dave shrugged, and said, “It’s Fern’s turn to take it out, and I refuse to do it for her.” He tried to smirk, but it didn’t hit the same way as when Fern did it. 

“Are you guys okay?” Grace asked. It always took a little while to acclimate to home again when she came to visit, but this was surreal. These were the people who’d forced her to clean her room and do chores for the past two decades, and now this is how they were living? It was too bizarre for words. 

“We’re fine,” Dave and Fern said together. They exchanged irritated glances that were so similar, Grace had to stifle a laugh. 

Deciding it was time to put on her Resident Advisor persona, carefully honed during training sessions last August, Grace said, “Clearly, you need to talk this out. Fern, you first. What’s the deal with the trash?” 

“Apparently,” Fern said, “I don’t put it out early enough for Mr. Early Bird over here.” 

“Forgive me for not wanting my wife to chase the garbage truck down the street in her robe. That doesn’t happen when it goes out the night before.” 

“That only happened once!” Fern said. 

“And every kid on the school bus saw you!” 

“So what? It’s not like you have to ride the bus with them!” 

It was all Grace could do not to break down in hysterics. “Okay,” she said, holding up her hands for quiet. “And Dad? The dish tower?” 

“Apparently we’ve been loading the dishwasher wrong all these years,” he said. “But Fern is an expert, so I thought I’d let her handle it from here on out.” 

“I didn’t say it was wrong,” Fern said. “I merely suggested a strategy that would help us fit more in so we could run it once a day instead of twice.”

“No, you didn’t say, ‘wrong.’ You said ‘stupid.’” 

“Because it is stupid to load your dishwasher like a single person when you’re married!” 

“Well, it’s not my fault I was single for 18 years!” 

“Yes, actually it is!” 

Grace knew they were getting to the heart of the matter now. These two only fought about one thing: how long it had taken them to get together. Grace still marveled at how different her childhood memories looked filtered through the lens of the slow-burning love affair that had been going on beneath her nose. Fern had been right there, waiting, and Dave had been so worried about being the perfect dad, he’d nearly missed her. 

Dave looked sheepishly at the floor. “I hate when you say that,” he said softly. 

Fern placed a hand on Dave’s shoulder and squeezed. “And I hate feeling like you still don’t want me in your perfect little bubble.” 

Dave leaned in to his wife. “It couldn’t be perfect without you,” he said softly. “You’ve always made everything in my life better.” 

Sensing her work here was done for the moment, Grace slowly backed out of the room  and headed upstairs. 

An hour later, showered and unpacked, she stole quietly back down to the living room. On the couch, hand in hand and fast asleep, sat the people she loved best in the world, united once again. In the kitchen, the previously putrid garbage can sat fresh and empty, and the full dishwasher hummed along contentedly, washing the unpleasantness away. 

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