Episode 925: Standing With You

“The other two were enough to throw off my entire day, tell whoever it is to make an appointment.”

“Yes, sir, it’s just that-”

“I’m not a visitor, I’m an employee and I can’t do my job unless my grandpa tells me what my job is.”

“Send her in,” Phillip said. He placed his head in his hands for a moment. He hated this feeling. It wasn’t like him to be unsure of what to do.

“Do you have a headache?” His granddaughter asked.

“Something like that.” He lifted his head.

“You drink too much coffee probably.” She unceremoniously dropped her backpack on his office floor and marched over to the small bar in the corner. She poured a glass of water from the pitcher and set it before him on his desk. “So what’s my job?”

“Your job is to go home,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I had a talk with your parents today, they-”

“You had a talk with me yesterday and you said I could work here.”

“That was before I saw how concerned your parents are.” The husband’s concern hadn’t bothered him one bit, but at a certain point Justine’s eyes had welled up. Even if they were estranged, he wasn’t immune to his child’s tears.

“That’s not fair.” Tansy crossed her arms. “You said if I made a commitment I should stick to it, but you’re not sticking to your commitment to me.”

“I know what it’s like to have a rift between a parent and child.” He frowned. “I don’t want you to experience that.”

“There’s a rift because my parents are obsessed with that stupid animal shelter and they think I’m running away from a girl there and if I don’t work here here then I’ll go back there and face everything that I don’t want to face.”

So it was a bully situation? Phillip was, as much as it pained him to admit it, inclined to agreed with Justine and the husband, that you should stand up to a bully rather than run away. But it turned out he wasn’t immune to his grandchild’s tears either. “I could use an assistant to remind me to drink water, among other things. How would that suit you?”

Episode 926: Good Old Days