Jack was coming home from work early, he closed the door
.behind him. He could smell what's cooking from the kitchen
Suzan was baking pies again. Hanging his coat in the
corridor he looked at the floor, then headed for his
bedroom.    
#&
8220;Honey is that you there?'' Came a voice from below.
,He got into the shower and started taking off his clothes

#&
8220;yes, I'll be right down''
,He opened the water and stuck his hands underneath it
feeling the cool liquid pouring down, gathered in his
palms. As awakening out of a dream, he splashed his face
and adjusted the water to the right temperature, not too
hot, but certainly not cold; lukewarm and then some, just
the way he liked it.    
,Mother used to bath him all the time. He would sit there
in the bath, with his little duck toy, floating and soaked
with an ever white foam, and thinking of the other toys he
,should have brought with him to his bath. Oh, never mind
,tomorrow he'll sneak his robot and his favorite airplane
when mommy looks the other way.      
He got in and pressed his back against the ceramic
decorated wall, handpicked by his wife when they first
moved in, fifteen years ago.
8220;I want our rest room to look just like in those#&
.magazine pictures I've been showing you'' she would say
These damn magazines. In fact, everything in the house was
,the creation of her. He figured that only makes sense
since after all she's the one who occupies the house the
most, out of the four of them.      
Of course, they've had two children, ''adorably
,wonderful boy and girl'' she always says with a smile
.leaving out the other one, of whom they never talk
8220;An extremely rare and unfortunate case'' was what#&
the doctors told them when it was brought out; and that was
that. They left it to the doctors to handle.    
Tommy, their first born, was turning twenty, and Karen had
just reached eighteen. Both sailed away for college the
moment they graduated from high school, giggling their way
out, and leaving an empty house behind them.      
Jack took the almond-honey fragranted soap and put some on
his sponge. Scrubbing and rubbing himself, he thought about
his day at work.  
And what a day it was. Probably his last. He knew it's
going to be a bad day since the moment he saw his boss
,coming at him, with a bunch of papers in his hands
marching from the other end of the bank floor to his
office.    
8220;Jack, care to explain me some things?'' He shot at#&
him right away.
It was like that time when he lied to his mother who
thought she had lost her wallet in the supermarket. He
nodded his head then, ''no mommy, I didn't see your
purse falling'' he had told her firmly, holding on to his
bulged stomach, ''maybe it fell out of your purse when
you took those apples'' he looked as though pondering, and
,mother caressed him with her tender hands, ''see baby
you've gotta hold on tight to what you have, everything can
get lost in a heart bit, always stay on your tip of your
toes '' she smiled one of her crooked smiles, and went
.to unpack the groceries