One evening, on account of terrible events, Mrs. Hoppers’ husband showed up in his recently wrecked-up car, in the middle of the driveway. Mrs. Hopper looked at Mr. Hopper’s face through the windscreen of the wrecked old vehicle. She saw a look of tiredness and stressedness. It looked like he’d been outside again.

She walked outside into the driveway. She stopped and tapped her foot against the pavement. “Where do you think you’ve been?” she asked.

“What do you think?” Mr. Hopper said back. He didn’t have anything else to say. He struggled out of his ride, and then clumsily walked back into the house. He was walking and talking with his wife.

“You can’t go out like this anymore!” she yelled at him. Mr. Hopper didn’t seem a bit fazed. “It’s not setting a good example for anybody!”

“You seem too stressed out,” Mr. Hopper said.

Mrs. Hopper grabbed her husband and started shaking him. “I mean it!” she said, over and over again. “No excuses!”

“Hey, go easy there,” Mr. Hopper said. “What are you trying to do, kill me?”

“A lot of days I feel like it,” said Mrs. Hopper. “But I know that you’re my husband, so I shouldn’t.”

“Good,” said Mr. Hopper. “It means someone cares about me.”

“That’s not what I mean!” shouted Mrs. Hopper. “All I’m saying is that you should lay off all of these poisonous substances!”

“Do you have to be so dramatic all the time?” said Mr. Hopper, reaching into the cabinets of the kitchen for his medication. He took it every day and night with water.

“I am a nurse, for crying out loud!” Mrs. Hopper shouted again. “You don’t think I see people like this all the time?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mr. Hopper told her, popping the medication into his mouth and swallowing it.

Mr. Hopper did a lot of bad things. His wife didn’t like him at all. She wanted a divorce, since Mr. Hopper did things that weren't great for him or his health. But this is a kids story, so I don’t think I should recite the list of bad things Mr. Hopper did every single night.

“And another thing-” Mrs. Hopper continued her conversation, but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. It was the footsteps of their daughter, Diane. Her groggy face showed in the darkness, as she walked to her parents and spread out her long hair across the back of her head so she could see the kitchen better. “Could you keep it down, mom and dad?” she yawned. “I’m trying to sleep here.”

Mr. Hopper got completely away from the conversation. He knelt down to his daughter, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and whispered to her “I love you so much.”

Diane knew he didn’t really mean it. After she was sent back upstairs to bed, Mr. Hopper followed her upstairs to his bedroom. Meanwhile, it was going to be long from Mrs. Hopper’s bedtime.

She was trying to think of a cure for her husband. It was at that moment that she had her aha! moment. Even though there were so many mean things involved, she must teach her husband.

The next morning, she went to the grocery store and bought a lifetime supply of the things that Mr. Hopper liked that weren’t good for him. The cashier, who knew Mrs. Hopper very well (she liked discussing with him all of the healthy foods she bought), looked confused. Never would Mrs. Hopper buy something like this.

When she got home, she found Diane at the table, eating her breakfast of a bowl of vitamin-filled cereal that looked like little oats. She didn’t get that much sleep last night. She was worrying about her father more. She gave one stare at her mother bringing all of the bad things inside, and then looked back at the wall. My parents must both be crazy, she thought.

Next, she showed all of those things to her husband. “I’m sorry about how I acted last night,” she said. “I forgive you with all of this.” Her husband looked pleased and said, “Well, this is surely a surprise. I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday, too.”

As they hugged, Mrs. Hopper realized something. You see, her plan was to poison her husband so much, she’d put him in a coma. And after how long it took to get out of it, he’d wake up and learn his lesson. But she realized that if she was going to put her husband near death, she might have another kid first. And so, she talked him into it.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Hopper said. “It’s too hard to have two kids. I think one’s enough.” He looked at Diane and gave her a nice smile. However, she jumped into the conversation too. “It’s too boring without siblings,” she said. “And there are too many girls in this house. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate girls, but a baby brother would be nice.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Mrs. Hopper. “Diane, you’re going to get a little brother to keep you company.” Now it was her turn to smile.

“Hooray!” she cried. “I’ve always wanted someone!”

“Oh, and by the way,” Mrs. Hopper said casually, “You might want to save that present from me for a very good time. It lasts a long time, you know.”

Mr. Hopper agreed. He actually felt like family mattered more.

After the nine-month process of having the baby, which included lots of pregnancy (which nobody wants to hear about), Mrs. Hopper was hoping for a boy. And to her surprise, it was a boy!

When she finally had the boy, she held the crying newborn in her hands. Diane was looking at his little face and smiling into it. “Can I help you name him?” she asked.

“Actually,” said Mrs. Hopper, “You’re six. It’s about time you had the privilege to do things yourself. Diane, you can name this boy. I’m going to talk to your father now.”

After Mrs. Hopper was out of the room, Diane cradled her brother in her arms and shook him around gently. She was thinking of names in her head. Finally she said, “Jack,” in a whisper, and from now on that was his name.

・・・

It had now been two years since Jack had come into the world. Diane was eight and Jack was two, and they were already having adventures. Jack was very precocious for his age, which meant he knew what to do and could say almost anything. He sounded too old for his age.

Also, Mr Hopper had now taken down most of his lifetime supply of bad things. Mrs. Hopper was really going to show him now. He became more and more tired every day, and for some reason, Diane knew exactly what her mother was trying to do to her father.

“What’s happening to dad?” Jack would ask often.

“Make sure you say your last goodbyes to him,” Diane kept saying to him. “What’s going to happen isn’t going to be pretty.”

“Diane, what’s going to happen?” Jack finally asked a year later. “I’ve been dying to know.” He had a cute, sad look in his eye.

“If you really want to know,” Diane said, “I’ll tell you. You see…” and she told the whole story to Jack. He kept nodding his head and being interested in what his big sister was telling him. Finally, when she reached the end of her story, she said, “So now do you know why dad is like that?”

“Yes,” Jack said. 

“Good,” Diane replied back. “I’m glad you’re very smart for your age.”

“What do most kids my age do?”

“Well,” said Diane, putting her hands behind her back, “they usually stick their fingers into their mouths and try to suck on them. Gross, huh?”

“You’re telling me!” said Jack, and he laughed. Later that day, he thought about it again, and then thought that if he was the appropriate age then he could at least try it. He stuck his whole hand into his mouth and choked on it, pulling his hand out. I can’t see why people my age do this! he thought.

After their mother had gotten Jack and Diane ready for school, she sent them off and went into her room, reaching for her small chart. She had done some research about what she was planning to do to her husband. She read in an encyclopedia on scientific things that if someone poisoned their body with bad things for a certain period of time, then eventually they’d fall into a coma. However, she did read that this kind of coma could lead to death. She tried to be careful after she read that. She didn’t want to kill her husband, after all.

But her husband was still going strong. He had a goal of his own: to finish it all by the same period of time it took for him to get a coma from it. While he had been working his way down, he had been bringing the nasty stuff with him to his friends, who were just like him.

Finally, in November, it was the day that he was put near to death. He had gone out with friends that day to talk about a lot of boring adult stuff, and he had brought the very last of his supply of awful poisons with him.

He grabbed the rest of his bad things and said, “I’m going out with my friends. And don’t worry, I’ll show up eventually.” Little did he know that this was going to be one of his last times he went through the door of his own house. In fact, he had already been experiencing pain that day, and just said, “It’s nothing.” He was wrong. Very wrong.

He stepped out of the door. Jack looked at Diane and said, “Where is dad going, Diane?”

“He’s going into trouble,” she said. “Big, big trouble.”

A few hours later, Mrs. Hopper got a call from a stranger calling her from a payphone nearby where her husband had been. The stranger was a young man, explaining that as Mr. Hopper had been talking to his friends in an alley, he had suddenly fallen into a deep slumber and fell down, but he didn’t feel any pain. He told her he had already called an ambulance.

Mrs. Hopper put the phone down. So my plan worked, she thought. Now I just have to wait for him to recover. She knew that was going to be decades, but he deserved it.

“Mom,” said Diane, “Did anything happen to dad? I feel like you were discussing something urgent with whoever you were with on the phone.”

“What happened, mom?” Jack chimed in.

Suddenly, Mrs. Hopper felt bad about what she had done to her husband. “I’m really sorry to tell you this, my children,” she said. Her kids looked puzzled. They had never been called “my children” by their mother. Their mother continued. “I’m really sorry to say this, but I’m afraid your father has poisoned himself so much that he’s put himself in a coma.”

Diane put her hands over her mouth. “Oh, no!” she said. She started to cry.

Her mother handed her a box of tissues as Jack said, “Mom, what’s a coma?” He looked confused.

“It’s when your body is in so much bad shape, you fall asleep and don’t wake up for years. That’s what’s happened to your father.”

“You mean dad’s going to be asleep for years?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Oh, okay.” Now he started crying. Even Mrs. Hopper got emotional. But she knew that she had shown her husband as she wiped a tear from her eye. She knew that it was the right thing to do to her husband, even if what had just happened had been hard on her children.

Ten years later, Mr. Hopper was still in the hospital, in his bed, where he’d been fast asleep for over a decade now. He had many devices and tubes connected to him all over his body. He looked a bit funny, but his family wouldn’t like to think so.

The doctors who had checked on him all the time to see if he’d ever wake up were by his bed right this moment. 

“Maybe he’ll wake up one day,” one of the doctors said, trying to make a little smile.

“I’m beginning to lose hope,” said the other. “It’s been a decade. We’ve all aged. I think it’s time we say this man is a goner.”

It was true. Everybody had changed and went on with their life, while Mr. Hopper stayed in his hospital bed all the time. When he had gone out with friends on a bad night and fell into a coma, it was 2013. Now it was a nice Spring day in 2023.

Suddenly, Mr. Hopper, despite his deep, immovable slumber, started to toss and turn. He suddenly sat up straight in bed, and started adjusting his eyes to the whiteness of the emergency room. He recognized where he was, all right. But he was still very confused.

“Ohhh, my head,” he said, holding it. “What…what happened?”

The doctors looked at him in excitement. “Hooray!” they both shouted. “He woke up!” They were so happy about their patient.

“Woke up from what?” Mr. Hopper said.

One of the doctors knelt down to him. “This might be a little heavy to process,” he said, “But I’m going to tell you what happened.”

“For goodness’ sake, just tell me already!” Mr. Hopper said impatiently.

“Okay,” said the doctor, “You see, it was a cool night in 2013 that you went out and poisoned your body so much with all of the things that your body shouldn’t consume that you fell into a coma. It’s lasted over ten years. Now it’s 2023 and you’ve finally woken up.” He held up a newspaper. New York Thanksgiving Parade for 2023 is a blast, it read.

“Wait, what?” Mr. Hopper said, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve been in a coma for ten years? Oh my goodness, it feels like it’s only been a night…”

“That’s what they all say,” the doctor replied. “But since you’ve woken up, you will have to fill out a few things, reunite with your family, and go. You’re free now. The whole world’s yours.”

Mr. Hopper never felt so happy in his whole life. He wanted to leap out of bed and dance, but he couldn’t. One, he was too weak, and two, he heard someone coming into the room. It’s probably another doctor, he thought. The doorknob turned. And into the room came his family! Just as he remembered them.

However, they looked different. His wife was still in the same shape, but she had aged. The seven-year-old Diane he used to know was now almost graduating from high school and was getting dates. And Jack was now thirteen years old and in middle school. Everybody had grown up. And their voices sounded different, too. 

“I was so glad to hear that you finally woke up!” Mrs. Hopper said.

“I mean, we drove right to the hospital when we heard the news,” said Diane. “Ten years really is a long time.”

“I was really looking forward to seeing you,” said Jack.

They all went to Mr. Hopper and hugged him in bed. “I’m promising you right now,” he said as he gave his wife a kiss, “No more bad things in my body. I’m becoming a new man.”

“Good,” said Mrs. Hopper. “The kind of husband I want.”

Later, at dinnertime, everything was back to normal. The Hoppers could finally sit at the table with their father again. The children also watched as Mr. Hopper gathered the rest of his awful substances and threw them out. As they all sat down to dinner, Mr. Hopper felt so happy and peaceful. He knew he had done the right thing.

“So, how was your day, my lovely daughter?” he asked Diane.

“Well, I was having a good day,” she replied, “And then it just kept getting better and better.”

Like I mentioned earlier, ten years is a long time. A lot of things can happen in a decade. And if a lot of things can happen to anyone in a decade, you can bet your life Jack and Diane had many different experiences in the ten years that Mr. Hopper was in a coma. The list is so long, so there isn’t time for all of them.

However, there were a few key parts of their life. First of all, after Mr. Hopper was reported to the hospital, his wife got bored and decided that she wanted a new husband, since hers would be in a coma for a long time, let alone die from it.

It just happened. One day, she showed up with a different man. She had been holding his hand as they walked through the doorway into the house. Mrs. Hopper’s children had been following.

“Mom, who is this man?” Jack said. “He looks different than dad.”

Diane just followed. She was studying the guy to see whether she liked him or not. So far it wasn’t proving very successful. “I think mom’s getting new dates,” she told her little brother. “After all, our dad is in the hospital.”

“Hello, children,” the man said, “My name is Ross. Your mom is starting to date me, so you’ll see me around the house every now and then.”

Diane studied him some more. “Which country are you from?”

The man laughed. “Well, my parents are from South America, and I look like them, but I was born in California.”

“Ooh, California,” Jack said. “...What happens in California?”

“Well,” said Diane, counting the long list on her fingers, “There’s the big Hollywood sign and the walk of fame and a lot and lot of crime.”

“Oh, okay,” said Jack. “Well, we come from Boston where it’s nice and cool all the time.” “It’s not hard for me to understand that,” said Ross, whose real name was Mr. Seinfeld. “I mean, you’ve lived there for all your lives.”

Jack and Diane thought that Mr. Seinfeld was promising. In fact, at first, they liked him a lot. But the more they went out with them on their dates, the more they missed their actual father. Even though he was a bad man on some levels, there was still something nice about him.

Maybe it was because it was the first and now only dad they had.

But even though they were three and eight at the time, they knew they couldn’t do anything about it. They knew that you can’t control love. Love controls you, and whoever you feel like dating, you date. It’s as simple as that. It happens to a lot of people. It didn’t happen to Jack and Diane, but soon enough Jack would be a teenager in more than ten years and Diane would find a cute boy and hang out with other girls in no time.

Jack and Diane were invited on more dates than anything in their life. If they were doing a lot of something, it was going to be to go out on a date. Of course, Jack was old enough to understand Marriage and Diane, too, so they wondered why they didn’t already get at least engaged.

And, after a while, this led to the two children being a little tired of the situation to the point where they started whining about it.

“I’m going on another date with Mr. Seinfeld,” said Mrs. Hopper one happy Summer morning. “So make sure you get dressed nicely, and put on your new pants, Diane.” The happy, excited woman was washing a blue pitcher at the sink that had previously been filled with a morning breakfast beverage.

It was at that moment that the two children cracked.

“I’m sick of going out on dates,” said Diane. “Why don’t you just get married today or something like that?” She was sitting upside-down in a sofa chair.

“Me too,” Jack chimed in. He then lowered his head and closed his eyes to put a sad kind of look on his face. “And I miss dad.”

Mrs. Hopper looked around the room and then at her two distressed children, complaining about marital statuses, which were so far none. “Oh, please, calm down,” she said. “I’m only testing the waters to see if we really are meant for each other, because, hey, maybe your father will actually wake up some day. Who knows?”

But it still didn’t make sense to the children. They couldn’t understand how it would be okay to have their mother hanging out with another man while still having their father awake someday. They just understood it as their mother dumping their father and wanting to spend time with another man.

While they didn’t understand how this whole cycle worked, they did understand their distress, and Mrs. Hopper understood it too, all right. She couldn’t take her eyes off the two unhappy little children.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she said. “You’re just not used to change, that’s all. I wasn’t either when I was a little girl.”

Diane sat up in her chair to prevent all of the blood in her body going to her head. “I feel like this is more than change, mom. I just can’t understand this, no matter how much you keep telling it to me. Love is complicated, and there’s just no way to fix that.”

“She’s right,” Jack agreed. “Love is very complicated, and I’m never going to fall in love with somebody. I’m going to stay in my own cottage all by myself all my life long.” He happily crossed his shoulders and grinned.

Mrs. Hopper and Diane couldn’t stop laughing after that. After they used some ten tissues to dry their tears, Diane sat cross-legged on the floor and said, “Oh, it feels good to laugh after all these years.”

“I agree,” said Mrs. Hopper. “I really needed that.”

However, the laugh was only experienced because Jack said something funny along the lines of love. And love was still complicated, and the two Hopper children were both stressed, anxious, confused, and weary, maybe all of those things mixed up together into one. Like an inside collage.

Mrs. Hopper was still eyeing her two children. She didn’t get to do that often because her children were always at school, but when they declared a June holiday for students, then Mrs. Hopper had some of her favorite people to spend time with.

“Tell you what,” she said, pulling out a dollar from her pocket. “Take this from me, and go buy yourselves one of those chili dogs from the June harvest. They taste really good. I think you need one.” 

Jack and Diane happily accepted the offer to buy one and share it, because the latter said that sharing is always fun. Jack didn’t seem to agree too much, but he was hungry so he took it over nothing. The two delighted kids took the dollar and headed out the door to the June harvest.

・・・

“Mmm, that was just perfect,” said Diane as she took a sharing-sized bite of the chili dog. She was sitting on Jack’s lap, with her hands between his knees, even though it was a bit tiny for her. But she liked the feeling of it, so they stayed that way. She handed the morsel to Jack and he took a little bite next. They were taking turns taking bites of the chili dog until there was nothing left.

The chili dog was really what they needed that moment, that juicy, crispy, tender-cooked meat topped with little dollops of chili sprinkled with cheese. And the people at the June harvest were nice too, although a little too nice. They offered to give a free animal balloon to Jack, not knowing his precociousness, and they even said that they were such nice-looking kids that they could just take the chili dog free. They declined, of course, and paid with the dollar their mother gave them.