Spring Eternal

Chapter 6
After Night has fallen

Chapter Description: It's a bumpy night for Iris and Cal.

When Cal reluctantly began to wake up, the sounds of the park had evolved and changed. The sounds of small children splashing in the nearby pool had diminished considerably and replaced by the sounds of older school children attending their afterschool team practices. A nearby soccer field had a coach blowing a whistle at a group of ten year olds in matching jerseys as they ran through their drills. The sun had moved lower in the sky, causing the light to become more golden. The heat of the day had dissipated with a slight breeze moving the leaves on the trees with a slight hushed rattle. Cal had slept so soundly in Iris’ lap that he only half heartedly struggled to awaken. He had woken up slowly, his head rocking back against Iris’ soft breast as he blinked his half open eyes.

Seeing that the little one in her lap as waking up, Iris leaned back to peer down at the lax face as he pulled his fingers from his mouth. She reached down with her fingers to wipe his shiny drool covered chin.

“Welcome back. Did you sleep well?” Iris gently intoned. She smiled maternally at the sleepily blinking eyes and nodded after a second when the question penetrated the fog around him.

After no particular rush, the pair stood and packed up their bags and made their way back to the car via the rest of the walking path. They arrived home by early evening. After a simple dinner, they received a phone call from Patrice and Randall. They wanted to check in on how the woman and their small friend were getting along. Iris happily told them of their experience at the park. When it was Cal’s turn, he assured his worried friend, Randall that everything was going just fine. Randall told them that they were going to be ensconced in hearings for the next couple of days, so they wouldn’t be able to call. Cal told him that they shouldn’t worry. He and Iris were getting along great. Smiling, he handed the phone back to Iris. He had no idea that things were going to change drastically in the next twelve hours.

…………..

The sky had just started to lighten when Cal woke up. He lazily blinked his eyes at the dully lit ceiling over his head and smacked his lips. He was thirsty. He sat up and scooted back toward his headboard, looking at the small table next to his bed. He had a small reading lamp there with a couple of magazines. He usually had a sippy cup half filled with water sitting there for those times when he woke thirsty. He did not see the cup sitting on the table. He realized that Patrice had always taken care of it. It may not have been noted in Patrice’s instructions. He thought about it for a moment before turning over and attempting to go back to sleep. However, his mouth felt like cotton, so he knew that he would not be getting any rest until he got some relief from the situation. He slid over his mattress that crinkled as the plastic covered mattress announced his movement. His sleeper covered feet hit the floor. The thin textured plastic covered soles on his feet shifted slightly under him as he settled onto the floor.

He trudged across the room to his door that had not been latched. He easily pulled the door open and paused at the entrance to the darkened hallway. He could hear the soft snores coming from underneath the door of Iris’ room. He decided to not to waken her and proceeded to the kitchen to get his own drink. Patrice always kept a sippy cup on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator. All he had to do was, open the frig and retrieve his cup for himself.

When Cal reached the kitchen, he marched over to the refrigerator. Bracing his shoulder against the nearby cabinet, he placed his hands on the edge of the refrigerator’s door. Then using all his strength and leverage, he was able to break the seal on the appliance’s door. Once the seal was broken, it was not difficult to open the door. When the door of the frig was open, light poured out into the kitchen. Cal stood there looking for the desired sippy cup. It was not in its regular spot on the crisper. He looked all over the shelf to see if it was hidden behind something. No, it was not there. He looked up at the next shelf with no luck. It was the same story for the shelf above that one. Finally, he spotted it. It was sitting on the top shelf of the refrigerator. It might as well be sitting on a mountain top. It was drastically out of his reach from where he was standing.

Seeing the sippy cup as a reward, he did not think long on how to solve the problem. He stood on the inside lip of the refrigerator. He leaned against the shelves on his tiptoes as he stretched for the cup. It remained out of his reach, just a few inches for an adult, seemed to be a vast expanse to his small size. If only he could somehow get higher. He placed his foot on the large crisper, using his hand to scale the other shelves. It brought him up to where he could grab the top shelf. The cup was just to the right of him. Keeping his left hand on the shelf, he reached out with his right hand to the cup, shifting his weight.

Suddenly, his weight began to tilt the top glass shelf forward. He could feel himself falling back as the entire contents of the upper shelf came sliding toward him. The quart of milk, glass containers of juice, beets and salad dressing, containers of cottage cheese and yogurt hit him, making him loose his grip. All of it ended up in a conglomeration of milk, juice and food products with Cal sitting stunned in the center.

The hallway light came on as hurried footsteps came thudding down to the kitchen. The overhead light of the kitchen came on; displaying Cal sitting straight legged in a puddle of spilled foodstuffs and broken glass. He was drenched from the contents of the shelf. He was wiping the milk and juice from his eyes as he looked up warily at Iris. Iris shrieked when she saw a puddle of red from the beets blazing up in the mess. She swooped over, picking up Cal from the mess and sitting him on the counter. She grabbed a towel as she began to hurriedly dry him off, looking for wounds. She inspected every bit of him, turning his hands over, feeling his scalp and inspecting his small body. Finding none, she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as she hugged his little body to her. Cal sat on the counter, enveloped by Iris’ embrace, embarrassed and contrite. This was the last thing he had intended, he had only wanted his sippy cup, not to throw the household into an uproar.

“What were you doing?” Iris asked as she released Cal to sit back on the counter. Bracing her arms on each side of Cal, her breathing was labored as she tried to bring her heart rate down while waiting for his answer.

“Ay uwan my szippy ca upa.” Cal muttered, not able to look at Iris’ face, his vision being drawn to the spreading colorful eyesore on the floor beyond.

“You were thirsty?” Iris pondered the reasoning for the dramatic scene in the kitchen. Without waiting for his answer, she quickly moved over to a cabinet, grabbed a glass and quickly filled it with water from the sink. She was back in front of Cal in an instant, holding the glass up to his mouth.

Cal timidly sipped from the adult size glass being held in front of him. His small mouth could not handle the water flow from the glass which allowed some of the water to drip onto his chest. Pulling the glass down from his face, Iris patted his chest dry with the dishrag she had used earlier. Looking at the sleeper, she shook her head.

“Better?” She curtly asked, as irritation began to surface in her tone. “Let’s get this nasty sleeper off. Then, I think you should go back to your bedroom while I clean up this mess.”

With that she placed him down on the floor. She reached down and unzipped the sleeper peeling it off him, leaving him standing there in the disposable toddler training pants. She swiftly grabbed one of his hands, pulling it upward so that it was vertically held straight up. She held it in front of her as she hot stepped him back to his room. His legs flailed as he tried to keep pace with the rushed pace set by Iris. She let go of his hand once they were inside the doorway of his room. He stumbled and turned around to see Iris close the door on him.

He stood there in his darkened his room staring at the door, reviewing what has just happened. He was frightfully embarrassed by the whole incident. It was honestly, an accident. He was only trying to get his sippy cup which by all rights should have been on his bedside table. He was intending to be considerate by allowing Iris to sleep. He looked down at his chubby tummy and legs, which sprouted goose pimples from the moisture left behind by the drenched sleeper. He couldn’t be any more humiliated with the results of his actions. He wanted to apologize, or at least offer to help Iris with the mess. With that thought in mind, he reached up on his toes to the doorknob.

He quietly made his way down the hallway to the kitchen where he came upon Iris on her hands and knees picking up the containers and throwing them in the garbage can she had dragged over. She was muttering about the mess, children wandering unattended and what they did in her day. Cal stood by the door and spoke.

“Iwis…” Cal began his apology but before he could continue he was frozen by the older woman’s glare as she wheeled about on him.

“What are you doing out of your room? I thought I told you to stay there!” Iris enunciated with a finger pointed at him as she stood up from the floor and came over to him. “Fine. I’ll put you back.” She stated as she reached over to grab his hand.

Shocked, Cal took a step back from the display of ire being aimed at him. Who did Iris think she was talking to? He was not some child to be treated so dismissively. He scowled at the woman as she approached him. He obviously needed to remind her that he was not a toddler to be banished from the room.

“Iwis. Pu weez. We memba we ur aduz.” The infantile mangled plea came out of his mouth, but it did little to stop the movement of Iris’s hand as she captured his again. He found that he was again taken back to his room, despite his objections. Iris pushed him forward as he danced at the end of his arm in front of her.

She again let go of his hand, but he was ready for it this time and was able to spin around and look at her. The face of Iris sternly looking down at him intimidated him into silence.

“You stay here until I come for you, young man. Listen, if you came out of your room again, you’ll get a spanking” Iris announced as she firmly shut the door in his face. The metallic sound of the latch being engaged echoed around him.

He found himself standing in his room once again. He was able to shake off the shock a moment after the door closed. Suddenly, he was filled with righteous indignation. He charged to the door, reaching up for the doorknob. He was too short to turn the knob; it would spin back out of his hands every time he tried to turn it. It enraged him to find himself trapped in his room, like a real child. He began to beat and yell through the door.

“Iwis! Iwis! Op n dis doowo! IWIS!” He screamed as he flung himself against the door, beating and kicking it. “IWIS! DU YU HEE ME! IIIIWWWIIIS!”

There was no response. After several minutes of using his entire body to batter down his bedroom door to no effect, his legs gave out as he crumpled to the floor beside it. He was breathing was ragged as he stared back into his room, knowing that Iris would not open the door until she decided. The frustration that had built inside him until it began to find an outlet in the tears squeezing out of his eyes.

It was just then that he remembered about the cell phone that Randall had left him. It took him a few seconds to get to his feet but when he did, he lurched toward his bed. Finally propping up his upper body, he reached under his pillow for the instrument of his rescue. His hand swam back and forth in its pursuit of the electronic device under the pillow, searching for it. It was gone. He threw the pillow on the floor. It wasn’t there. He anxiously pulled down the sheet to see if it might have gotten tangled in the sheets. No luck. He got down on his hands and knees to peer under his bed for it. Again, it wasn’t there. With the loss of the phone, his only avenue of escape from Iris had been cut off. With dread, he realized that it was just him and Iris.

Cal twisted and roughly sat on his rump on the floor as the impact of the loss of the cell phone hit him. He leaned back against the mattress as he felt his desolation creep into his mind as the last hope of escape had vanished. It was just him and Iris for who knows how long. He felt unsettled as he reviewed what had just happened with him and Iris. He didn’t like it. It indicated that Iris perceived him as a child, not an adult stuck in a child’s body. He couldn’t believe that he had been deposited in his room like a recalcitrant toddler. The last thing Iris had said before she closed the door certainly not boded well. A spanking? Iris wouldn’t dare! Would she? What if…how could he stop her? It was obvious that Iris was confused again. What could he do? Where could he go? He was stuck here with Iris for the next several days. She treating him like a petulant small child was not something he was going to accept. He balled his lip in determination as indignation burned within him. He was not going to go along with it. He had been trying to be a good sport but look at where that had got him. No! He had had enough! Iris was not going to treat him like a child, if he had any say.