Saturday's Story

Back again after an extended break...

In Place of Fear

She knew that as her hand clenched the brass wrench in her right hand that would be an open invitation to lose all thirst for living. Jerrod had previously overexerted his own normally anxious self, wittering on about how Christopher should hear the spectacle in all its surround sound glory of the wafer thin plaster. Julia didn’t much care for it though – the sheer weight of her actions was in itself a mark of guilt. And the absolute desolation when Jerrod would leave her every morning was almost a reality too much to bear, because he’d be in the house still. Awaiting the marked devotion a mother would show her son.

He was no trouble at all – really, she’d try and assure herself. But there was always more than one voice in this debate and then the unquantifiable manifestation would plague all those doubts which had been repressed until his arrival on the scene.

“Can you be so sure…?”

“His skin may be purer than anything you’ve come across, but…”

And that was the crux of it all. The ‘but’ which made her almost burst into fits before she’d even released the handle to her marital bed. It would all come full circle. The second growth, consuming all that was good inside her. It would sometimes make her laugh if she’d been in a loving relationship with her own sex and there’d be a release from such obligations. Even then though, that wasn’t true of the world nowadays. Children were the grand compensation for all our failures. When she was sure Jerrod had kissed his goodbyes and left for the shifts, there’d be a key waiting in her hand and that door would lock her son just so there could be some peace. Sometimes, she might leave the house with a spring of the lost youthfulness and buy the evening’s supper without a worry for any other person in the house. On others…he’d be there. Wailing his sadness as the unloved gift that might as well have gone second-hand to a benign house of marvellous mothers and the loyal retriever getting daddy’s edition of the paper at breakfast.

At moments like these, Julia would stand at the foot of the stairs of the three storey new build. With a sad recognition that she never loved those who had dared to be closest to her and to sometimes a putrid satisfaction of his tears making her somehow feel that it was okay. At least there was one sadder person in the household than she. Ah, but then how he’d grow and begin to break down the prison of his room, to destroy the little that she’d care for in this world and to make her life the living hell, as he’d approach with his clenched fists and whisper in her ear that favourite cliché.

“You’re going to wish you’d never been born.”

And who would she turn to then? No one cared for the parents nowadays. It was all a question of how long fate would prolong the agony as her one-time son would exact his deadly revenge. The door must stay locked at all costs. Only then would he never learn the talent of man’s capacity for hatred; and only then would it be truly okay for her to run free from the obligations that bound her. That was the plan, at least until Jerrod had announced he may be able to work home for at least three days of his five day work commitments. And then that’s when the master manipulator (forget all politicians) would be set free from his chains and plot to make up for those loveless years.

“Ready, Jules.” That’s what he’d call her. Jerrod couldn’t bear to think that his own wife would seem him without any sort of concealment of his torso. “Age does it. It always creeps up in the end,” were his exact lines.

For a moment Julia didn’t answer. She looked down the blackened passage of the landing to see the unseen door to her contented son’s room. She could hear him now,

“Double trouble, mumsy.” Cackle, cackle.

She greeted the darkness of her room with a sad glance at the dark figure which stood on the edge of the opposite end of the bed. This could only be punishment for marrying a sexually rapacious monster and those evil, evil thoughts when Christopher had cried.

A little while after their evening of passion, Julia was proud to announce her first ‘miscarriage’. Two could play at this game.