Wife and Daughter Have Another Ancient Home; I Smash Portal

My wife and daughter told me the tablet at home could take you back to ancient times.

Back in those ancient times, they had another family.

For the holiday dinner, I spent four hours cooking a whole table of food.

But my daughter just grabbed my wife's hand and stepped into the screen.

My dad in the old days is an emperor. He eats nothing but the finest delicacies. I'm not eating your cheap junk.

I broke a bone in a car accident, and neither my wife nor my daughter came to stay with me. Instead, they complained that I was bothering them.

"You're a commoner. A little scratch is nothing worth fussing over."

"The Emperor Daddy's birthday is a great celebration for the whole kingdom. We have to be there."

Then I discovered every bank card in the house had a balance of zero, and I couldn't cover the hospital bill.

My wife and daughter sent me a video.

"The Emperor Daddy is a person of noble rank. Of course we have to buy him the very best gift."

"It's a tiny bit of money. What would a delivery driver like you know about it?"

I said nothing.

On the way home from the hospital, passing the hardware store, I bought a twenty-pound sledgehammer.

1.

I had just gotten home when my wife, Rose Delgado, came back through the tablet with our daughter.

The moment she saw me, Rose frowned.

"You knew Toni and I were coming back at this time. Why didn't you turn on the air conditioning ahead of us?"

She turned and saw the leftovers on the table, and a flicker of irritation crossed her face.

"Every single day it's these scraps. Just looking at them turns my stomach."

"A little scratch, and you're too precious to even cook a meal?"

I didn't answer. I walked straight into the bedroom.

I picked up the sledgehammer I'd just bought, hefted it in my hand, and set it carefully on the top shelf of the closet.

My daughter stood beside Rose, tilted her head up at me, and rolled her eyes.

"Mom, why waste your breath on him?"

"All this man ever talks about is saving money. Running the AC a little longer is like you're killing him."

"Even at dinner he nags. Either the food cost too much or the electric bill's too high. He drives me insane."

I came out of the bedroom, and something in my chest went cold.

"The mortgage, the car payment, your tuition. Without me pinching every penny, do you think this family could keep going?"

She clapped her hands over her ears in annoyance and ducked behind Rose.

"Are you ever going to stop? Every day this sob story, like you're the hardest-working person in the whole world."

"The Emperor Daddy is so much better. Handsome and noble, and he never bothers with me."

She wrapped her arms around Rose's waist and put on her sweet voice.

"Mommy, don't you like the Emperor Daddy better too?"

Rose didn't say anything, but the silent approval on her face said it all.

The old me would have flipped the table and fought it out until everything was said.

But this time, I only looked at her calmly.

"Rose. So you think it's a sob story too."

"You think I nickel-and-dime everything, that I've shortchanged you both. Is that it?"

Rose didn't answer. She took our daughter by the hand and started toward the tablet.

As she passed me, her steps paused.

Her tone was as flat as plain water.

"Take a look at yourself in the mirror. You're always in that same delivery uniform."

"The second you open your mouth it's how hard it is to make money. It's not just her. You and I don't have anything in common either."

Our daughter urged her on, unable to wait.

"The Emperor Daddy is waiting for us."

"If only we could stay in the old days forever. I really don't want to look at this loser."

And with that, the two of them stepped through the tablet together.

I stood in front of the mirror, and my heart felt like it had been stabbed.

The middle-aged man in the glass looked worn and shabby, with forty-dollar sneakers on his feet, split at the seams, that he couldn't bring himself to throw out.

But before I got married, I was always clean and neat too, and I never had to think twice about buying anything.

When had it all started to change?

It was Rose proposing to me over the phone, crying as she said, "Clint, I want to build a home with you."

So I scrimped and saved, wearing the same clothes for years, never willing to toss them.

Seven hard years. I gave up a respectable job back home and put a down payment on a place in her city.

It was my daughter, after she started school, throwing herself into my arms in tears, saying all her classmates took dance lessons and she wanted to go too.

So I counted every dollar, split each one in half.

And paid for her ballet classes at five hundred a session.

Now the ragged, beaten-down middle-aged man in the mirror.

He's a husband. He's a father.

The only thing he's no longer is the free man Clint Mason used to be.

I picked up the tablet.

On the screen, Rose and my daughter walked into a magnificent palace.

My daughter threw her arms around the man in the dragon robe on the throne and called him Daddy in that sweet voice.

Rose embraced him, tender and full of feeling.

The three of them, one happy little family.

And I had become the one extra person, watching from outside.

The next morning, my daughter's homeroom teacher called me ten times before I finally showed up at the school.

She told me my daughter had been calling herself a little princess.

Not only did she refuse to do her homework, she'd been ordering her classmates around like they were her servants.

She wanted me to take my daughter to a doctor and have her mind checked.

Face burning, I apologized to the teacher and promised I'd sit my daughter down and set her straight at home.

But my daughter suddenly shook off my hand and huffed out:

"This old man isn't my father."

"My daddy is a noble emperor!"

"My emperor daddy says I was born high and precious, so I don't have to grind away at schoolwork like some commoner!"

Every kid in the room craned their necks, whispering, watching me squirm.

The teacher turned to Rose, embarrassed.

"Toni's mom, raising a child isn't just her father's job."

"When a child disrespects her father, the mother needs to step in too."

I looked up at her, holding on to a thin sliver of hope.

But Rose only smiled and gave our daughter's head a careless little pat.

"Respect is something you earn for yourself. It isn't handed to you."

"Even your own daughter doesn't like you. You really should take a hard look at yourself."

I stood in the doorway, saying nothing.

All at once it just felt pointless.

Only two weeks ago Rose had held on to me and said she wouldn't know how to live without me.

My daughter used to trail after me like a little shadow, unable to fall asleep unless she was squeezed up against me.

She'd burrow into my arms and tell me I was the greatest dad in the whole world.

But ever since we bought that tablet, everything had changed.

They'd gotten a taste of some lavish ancient life, and suddenly they couldn't stand the sight of me.

Becoming a good husband and a good father had taken more than ten years of blood and sweat.

Turning into a worthless old man they nickel-and-dimed had taken only two weeks.

It was pouring when we left the school.

Rose held an umbrella and chattered eagerly with our daughter about what gift to bring back for their ancient daddy.

I dragged my casted leg along, struggling to move through the rain.

Coming down the steps, I tripped and went down hard into a puddle.

My broken shin screamed with pain.

I thrashed in the puddle for a moment and could only barely prop up half of my body.

Left with no choice, I called after them in a hoarse voice:

"Rose, give me a hand."

My daughter heard me and looked back, then let out an impatient sigh.

"Old men are such a pain."

"Can't you embarrass me a little less?"

The words turned bitter in my mouth.

"Antonia, I'm your father!"

She stamped her foot and pointed at me, screaming:

"You just made me with Mom, that's all! My emperor daddy is the one who really loves me!"

"My emperor daddy is always dignified and proper, and his clothes are always clean!"

"Do you know you deliver food all day and you always reek of stale sweat? I don't want you for my father!"

With that, she ran to the car without a backward glance.

Rose stood five steps away, holding her umbrella, looking at me.

Her brow was tight, her voice edged with reproach.

"Clint, you should set a good example for Toni. Stop expecting other people to do everything for you."

"There's an important banquet over there today. Toni and I can't be late."

"Quit making a scene. Get yourself home."

By the time the car vanished into the curtain of rain, a passing sanitation worker helped me up.

My whole body was soaked through with muddy water, my bones aching to the marrow.

I huddled under an eave. My phone had gone dead, the screen black from the water, and I couldn't flag down a car for hours.

The rain came down harder and harder, and the blur in front of my eyes, I couldn't tell anymore what was rain and what was tears.

In the end, I dragged that cast home in the dead of night.

By the time I got there, Rose and my daughter had already crossed over to their ancient world.

I looked at the happy little family on the tablet, and I sank down onto the couch, half-conscious.

In that haze, I dreamed of a lot of things from the past.

Right after we got married, I slipped in the bathroom.

It hadn't hurt at the time, but Rose still couldn't rest easy.

In the middle of the night she held me up and rushed me all the way to the ER.

Only when the doctor laughed at her for overreacting did she finally breathe again.

"Clint, I was so scared. I couldn't live without you."

And there was Toni when she was little.

I'd been away three days on a job, and the moment I opened the door she came crying into my arms.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and kept saying,

"Daddy, don't go. Toni wants to be with Daddy forever."

When the dream jolted me awake, I found my tears had soaked a wide patch into the armrest of the couch.

The room was empty, no warmth of another person in it, only bursts of laughter drifting from the tablet on the armrest.

On the screen, my daughter was holding out a chocolate ice cream bar for her so-called emperor father to eat.

"Emperor Daddy, my teacher says you should share the things you love with the people you love most."

"This is my favorite ice cream, and you're the daddy I love most."

Rose praised her for being so sweet, and everyone gushed about how happy their family was.

Only I sat outside the screen, drifting.

That box of ice cream was forty dollars for five bars.

Because my daughter liked it, I bought a box every week.

I bought it for years.

But I never once tasted it.

I couldn't bring myself to. I wanted to save all the best things for her.

Worried delivery food wasn't clean, I got up at five every morning to make her breakfast.

When the power went out in summer, I'd sit by her bed drenched in sweat, fanning her to sleep.

No matter how late the deliveries ran, I always stayed until she finished her homework before I rested.

I thought I was doing right by her.

But in her eyes none of that was love.

She said some man who never raised her was the daddy she loved most.

I wiped my eyes, pushed myself up, and dug that heavy sledgehammer out of the closet.

If she loved the ancient world so much, then she could stay over there forever.

Just then, the door opened.

My father, soaked through, stumbled over and caught hold of me.

"Clint? Aren't you supposed to be in surgery?"

"Where's Rose? Why isn't she with you?"

I froze.

Only after I pressed him did I learn how it had all happened.

While I was trapped in the rain with my phone drowned and dead,

Rose had used my surgery as an excuse and taken every dollar my father had.

He couldn't get through to me on the phone.

Desperate, he'd even handed his house over to a classmate of Rose's to sell.

Shaking with rage, I picked up my phone and called Rose.

Dozens of calls before I finally got her irritated voice on the line.

"Clint, what is it this time?"

"I already told you there's an important banquet today. Can you knock it off for a while?"

My voice cracked from panic.

"Why did you cheat my dad out of his money?"

"Even the house he was going to retire in, you had to swindle away! You've already taken every cent we had. That's still not enough?"

My daughter snatched the phone and snapped at me without a shred of courtesy.

"What would a bottom-of-the-barrel delivery driver like you know?"

"Mom and I hold noble rank now. When we go out, don't we have to tip the servants?"

"That little bit of money would barely buy a few small gold bars. Over here it's an embarrassment to even bring out."

Hearing how righteous she sounded, my eyes went red.

"What does you two playing rich in ancient times have to do with me?"

"Give my dad his money back, now!"

Rose simply pulled the receiver away.

"You really have no vision. Once we get a foothold over there, we'll have all the antiques and jewels we could ever want."

Beside her, my daughter laughed in contempt.

"Mom, stop wasting your breath on him."

"If he had any vision, he wouldn't be living like this."

Before I could finish, the line went dead.

I had no time to argue. I dragged my hurt leg and rushed to the agent to cancel the house sale.

By the time I got back, the front door stood wide open.

A thick stench of blood rode the draft straight into my face.

Panic took me. I tripped coming through the door and half crawled, half scrambled to the living room.

Rose and my daughter stood in the hallway with their backs to me. My father's pants were soaked red, and he was bent over in pain.

Something exploded in my head.

I lunged and threw my arms around him. Only then did I see the fruit knife in my daughter's hand.

"Antonia! Have you lost your mind?"

She lifted her chin and swept a glance over me.

"I only took a watch to give to my emperor father."

"And he actually dared to scold me!"

My father's breath was thin as thread, and his hand still gripped that chain.

"Clint, don't be angry at the child."

"This was what your mother left you. I got worked up and said a few harsh words."

"She's young, she doesn't understand. It's not her fault."

Hearing that, my heart twisted into a knot.

Back then, when my mother knew she didn't have long, she spent every cent she had left on a quartz watch.

She told me to keep it on me, so that whenever I looked at it, I'd think of her.

How much that watch meant to me, Rose and my daughter both knew perfectly well.

I wanted to call an ambulance, then remembered my phone was broken and still not fixed.

All I could do was shout at my daughter.

"Call 911, now! He's your grandfather!"

She showed not a trace of remorse. Instead she gave a resentful, cold snort.

"My father is the emperor, and my grandfather is the retired emperor!"

"You and this old thing are both peasants! What right do you have to boss me around?"

On her young face bloomed a kind of innocent viciousness.

"My emperor father said I hold noble rank. Any outside man who so much as touches me has to be gelded to atone."

"This old thing didn't know his place. He got off easy that the knife went in crooked."

"You disrespect me again and I'll have Mom slap you across the mouth!"

I staggered to my feet and looked at the wife I'd shared a bed with for over a decade.

"She doesn't understand, but do you not understand either?"

"When you were short on money for your surgery, it was my dad who gave you ten thousand dollars to get you through!"

"Call 911, now!"

Rose's expression stayed cold and distant. She calmly avoided my eyes.

"Clint."

"You could never understand the life of the nobility over there. If the crossing portal didn't have limits, I wouldn't want to come back at all."

"The emperor can't cross over himself, but he can watch me and Toni here through the portal."

"Every word Toni and I say, everything we do, has to protect the dignity of the royal house."

With that, she took my daughter's hand and disappeared beside the tablet once more.

In that moment, my heart went completely dead.

I didn't cry. Jaw clenched, I limped over to a neighbor's, borrowed a phone, and called an ambulance.

Only once I was sure my father was out of danger did I go home alone.

I took out the big sledgehammer and inched my way over to the couch.

On the tablet screen, Rose and my daughter were out on a pleasure boat with the emperor.

In the reflected light and shadow, my own eyes looked back, numb and cold.

What a lovely picture. Husband and wife in harmony, mother and child in loving devotion. One big happy family.

"Since you love the ancient world so much, then let me give you what you want."

I heaved the hammer up, drew a deep breath, and brought it down with everything I had.

"You two can stay over there, mother and daughter. Never come back!"