THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON

On the fortnight the prodigal son returned, Ma was knitting a fire in the stove and Pa was building a Trojan horse out of used horse parts and Trojans. Ma’s famous smackleberry pie was cooling on the windowsill and the warmth wafted through the backyard like the ghost of memories wafting in the backyard, smelling of pie. Neither Ma nor Pa were anticipating anything unusual this fine July fortnight, and yet they were screening their calls just the same.
It was a quarter past half when Ma let out a shrill sob. Pa looked up from his workbench, momentarily distracted by the shrill sob just let out by Ma. “The hell was that?” he inquired?
“A thousand and one Arabian pardons, Pa, I was just sobbing shrilly,” Ma lamented. “I was just reminded of little Tad again. Why it seems like only yesterday he left us behind for a big career in the big city.”
“Well, it wasn’t only yesterday; it was twelve years and six minutes ago,” Pa spat, moistening the davenport.
“Don’t moisten the davenport with your grudges, Pa. We’ll get mold in the folds of the couch.” Ma was nervously pacing back and forth, a habit she had picked up as an infant, and for which she was known county-wide, lettering in pacing back and forth in high school.
As Pa was preparing a raspberry retort, there came a knocking upon the door, and the air became still and tense, like a crouching tiger or a crossword you know is wrong. At first, Ma and Pa pretended not to be home by pantomiming being other places, such as the grocery store and the bowling alley. But after a pause pregnant with little baby pauses, the knocking commenced to continue to start up again. Pa started for the door and Ma finished for the door for him, as was custom in the region. At first she didn’t answer the door, intimidated by the inquisitive nature of this rectangle. Finally, she turned the knob and thrust open the door, in an effort to discern exactly who-or what- but really who was the source of the inknockulation.
Tad had barely changed in the twelve years and fifteen minutes since he’d pulled up stakes and headed east to find fame, fortune and his contact lens. His hands appeared rough, like a carpenter’s or and Osmond’s, and he had the world-weary expression of someone twice his age and half his cap size. Bangs congregated on his forehead like nuns in a calendar of nuns, and his chest was sunken like a prize at the very, very, very bottom of a cereal box. There were great bags under his eyes and adequate shoes over his socks. His overall demeanor was that of a scarecrow, complete with floppy hat and total lack of blackbirds. “Ma, Pa, I’ve returned,” he announced vocally.
Upon the arrival of Tad’s announcement, Ma erupted into sobs and Pa erupted into nonchalance. Tad waited for a sign to be invited in, like a polite vampire, and nearly three hours passed before Pa came back to ask why in the name of Jesus Christ Bananas he hadn’t come in yet.
The family now a whole, they sat at the kitchen table, dining on crusty bread and crusty yogurt, speaking of their crusty past. When talk turned to Tad’s departure, he explained what had transpired. “I found fame, but not fortune. I was named Happiest Boy Alive in St. Angeles County Fair. I was called upon to fight fires, return library books and kiss attractive women on the cheek. I ran for mayor, but lost to a science-fiction author who promised to write everyone in the district into his next novel. It was all downhill from there. I subsisted on school lunches and free grocery samples until I was discovered by a talent agent.
“For a couple of years I danced in a ballet company until I was just too tired. Penniless and loaferless, I lived underneath a minivan until it was re-parked. I now return home, in the hopes that you’ll forgive me and accept me back into your arms and into my room.”
After much hemming and hawing, Ma and Pa had three new pairs of slacks. They sold them and were able to raise enough money to either cure cancer or allow Tad to move back. As cancer still murders people and sundry animals to this very absolute second, you can guess the decision they made. But you must ask yourself, knowing what you now know, would you have done then what they did, or not knowing then what they didn’t know, would you in the past do what was ultimately done in the future, or would you presently do what was done, and how, knowing what was known and will be known now and before and to be known at a later time?
Show your work.