Daddy brought me to Aunt Jenny’s party.

As I was eating a piece of cake, I tasted a cherry between the layers and hurriedly spat it out. Once, I broke out in rashes after eating a cherry and nearly died, so I was deeply traumatized by that flavor even as a young child.

However, Aunt Jenny looked heartbroken. “I hid a cherry in the cake as a little surprise, just like it’s good luck to get a bay leaf in a pie. How could you be so rude, Kenny?”

Daddy did not even let me explain. He chased me out in the yard and made me stand there as punishment.

Mommy said it had been more than a hundred degrees out lately, so she told me to stay home and not go out to play.

Now I knew just how hot 104 degrees could be!

My body was all itchy, too. I was finding it hard to breathe.

I wanted to ask Daddy to forgive me, but he refused to open the door no matter how hard I knocked.

He glanced at me coldly through the floor-to-ceiling window. He was not going to let me back in.

When Mommy found me using the GPS on my smartwatch, I was sprawled on the floor, my exposed skin covered in red rashes.

Daddy was still ranting incessantly. “You spoiled the boy! He has no manners to speak of. How could he spit all over the table? Couldn’t he have at least gone to the trashcan? He was so ungrateful, too. That part of him is just like you…”

Mommy broke down, slapped Daddy across the face, and then picked me up in a mad dash to the hospital.

I watched everything unfold from my vantage point in mid-air.

I hated Daddy! He never cared about Mommy and me.

Yes. I was dead.

So this was what death felt like. Did our neighbor Old Man Cox hover like this in the air when he passed away last year?

I had not seen him last year. Did that mean my parents could not see me now?

I could see them, though.

I saw Mommy crying her heart out, waiting for the ambulance by the roadside anxiously.

I saw her beg the doctor to save me.

The doctor stared at the three flat lines on the screen and then sighed.

After that, Mommy took care of everything on her own. I saw them push “me” into a hole, and then a man gave Mommy a small box.

Mommy sat by the roadside, hugging the box and watching the cars pass in a daze. She only went home after the sun went down.

Back home, Mommy lay in bed, either weeping into her blankets or staring blankly at the ceiling.

I lay quietly next to her. I wanted to pat her gently, the way she always did when she tucked me into bed.

However… My hand phased through her body.

Mommy did not even hear my scream of shock.

She just lay there without moving. Feeling bored, I walked over to the toy blocks I had been building with her last night. We had not completed the puzzle yet.

I wanted to continue building the blocks, but my hand phased right through them. I could not pick them up at all.

I wanted to turn on the TV to watch my cartoons, but I could not do that either.

In the end, I had no choice but to go back to bed. Lying quietly next to Mommy like this was pretty nice, too.

Still, wasn’t Mommy hungry?

She never got up to cook anything.

I really missed Mommy’s fried chicken wings!

But I was dead now. Did that mean I would never get to eat them again?

On the third day after I died (I counted on my fingers), Mommy finally got out of bed.

She glanced at her phone. There were no notifications.

I was dead, and Mommy was heartbroken…. But Daddy never even called.

Were all fathers like that?

I watched Mommy take a few sheets of paper from her bedside drawers.

I recognized the words at the top. It was the divorce agreement!

Mommy had been keeping them in her drawer for a long, long time now. She always looked at them, then looked at me, and then kept them back in the drawer.

Finally, Daddy came home.

He plopped his butt on the couch angrily and then started barking. “Your son is a spoiled brat! Jenny went to all that effort to prepare such a nice surprise, but he literally spat it in her face! And he even tattled to you after I made him stand outside in time-out for a while!

“You’re not much better! That was Jenny’s house! She asked you why you came, but you completely ignored her and barged in without a word!

“You even shoved her! Can’t you talk like a human for once? Did you know she fell after you pushed her? She even cut her hand open!”

Mommy listened expressionlessly. Perhaps Daddy’s words could not hurt her anymore.

Ever since Aunt Jenny appeared in our lives, Daddy had been treating Mommy worse and worse. He kept saying mean and hurtful words to her.

I wanted to tell him, “I’m dead now, so is that enough to make it up to Aunt Jenny? Can you stop blaming Mommy now?”

Daddy raised his voice when Mommy did not respond. “I’m talking to you! Are you deaf?

“Do you have any idea how much you embarrassed me by slapping me in public that day?!

“You’re the reason your son is so useless! He’s a boy, yet he’s weaker than Jenny’s daughter!”

He then stood up and walked toward my room. “I’ll raise my son from now on. At this rate, you’ll ruin him for life!”

Mommy stood in his way, her face twisted into a sarcastic smile. “So you do remember that Kenny is your son. You keep calling my son, my son. I was starting to think I was his only parent. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s get divorced.”

Daddy snorted at the divorce agreement she handed him. “Are you crazy? You begged me to marry you. And now you want to divorce me unilaterally too?”

Mommy sighed, looking exhausted. “That’s right. You never loved me or Kenny, so let’s stop torturing each other. Once you sign this agreement, you can live happily ever after with your long-lost love. What are you waiting for?”

Daddy shoved Mommy’s hand away, making her stumble from the sheer force of momentum.

“You really are crazy! You barged into her house first. Jenny let it slide, but what you did was technically trespassing! Your son is just as rude and pathetic as you are. All I did was make him stand outside for a bit, but he acted like he was dying!

“And now you’re humoring his tantrums by threatening a divorce?! What are you thinking?”

Mommy was so mad her voice started to tremble. “What am I thinking? I should ask you that! Don’t you know Kenny was allergic to cherries?

“The first time he ate them as a kid, he broke into rashes and couldn’t breathe because his throat swelled up! There was a cherry hidden in that cake. What’s wrong with him spitting it out?

“I barged in to save my son! Was I wrong? If… If Jenny hadn’t stopped me, Kenny might have…”

Mommy’s voice trailed off, and her tears started flowing again. I really wanted to hug her and comfort her, just like I used to.

Daddy just snorted at her, looking down on her as always. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a cherry, what’s the worst that could happen? He’s allergic to cherries? You might as well say he’s allergic to air!

“How come I never knew about his allergies? You used him to bind me by your side, so I’m sure you would have told me about it if it was true. You’re such an accomplished liar, after all!

“Other kids don’t have allergies. You’re just spoiling your son as usual! I’ll fix him today if it’s the last thing I do.

“Bah, all you ever do is weep and cry! You’re acting like your son died!”

With that, Daddy ran to the fridge in the kitchen and took out the box of cherries he had bought two days ago, before heading to my room.

Mommy looked at him and shook her head, sitting wordlessly on the couch.

Aunt Jenny loved cherries. Every time Daddy came back from her place, he would bring home a box. It was apparently Aunt Jenny’s gift to us.

Mommy would leave them in the fridge until they rotted away, then she would throw them away.

Every time Daddy caught her in the act, he would accuse her of being ungrateful. Every time, Mommy would tell him I was allergic, but he never believed her.

Once, he even tried to force me to drink a cup of cherry juice while Mommy was away from home, raving, “Your mother keeps saying you’re allergic to cherries, but I don’t believe a thing she says. She’s just saying it to spite Jenny!”

In the end, I burst into tears and bit him as hard as I could. Only then did he let me go, tossing me onto the floor and giving me a few kicks for good measure before storming out of the house.

The cherry juice spilled all over the floor and even dyed my clothes red.