Wronged Sons, The by John Marrs Read Free Book Online Page A

looked to Doreen for support, but she said nothing. Then my ability to self-censor completely evaporated.
    “So I should stab someone and waste my life in prison then, would that be better, Kenny?” His cheeks exploded in a rainbow of reds as he banged both fists on the table.
    “You know what I’ve got? Respect. And you can’t buy that.” And before I could process what was happening, he’d thrown his chair to one side, and I was six inches off the ground, pinned to a wall by an arm the size of an anchor.
    “You ever look down your nose at me again and I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you,” he shouted as bread and potato bullets flew from his mouth and sprayed my face.
    “Kenny no!” shouted Doreen finally. She came towards us and tried to grab his arm. He swivelled around and her cheek took the brunt of the back of his hand. It sent her sprawling to the bare floorboards.
    “Leave her alone you bastard!” I yelled before he punched me in the stomach, winding me, and then clamped me tighter so I struggled to breathe.
    “Stop it, you’re hurting him,” pleaded Doreen, smearing a trickle of blood from her lip across a ghostly pale face.
    “Maybe this’ll teach him a lesson,” he replied, pulling his arm back to punch me again.
    “You can’t do that to your own son!” she screamed. He hesitated for a moment before letting me drop to a heap on the floor.
    “I told you then to get rid of him,” he fired back before storming out of the dining room. The front door slammed as I fought for breath while time temporarily stood still.
    “Why did you say that?” I gasped, utterly confused.
    “I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
    “He isn’t my father; Arthur’s my dad.”
    “You have two, Simon. I just wanted you to get to know each other.”
    Doreen attempted an explanation but I refused to listen. The truth was out, and so was I. I hadn’t even unpacked my suitcase when I picked it up and left. She ran up the street behind me, begging me to stay, naively believing Kenneth and I could work through our differences. But as always, she was fooling herself.
    Arthur knew something had gone terribly wrong when I called from a telephone box at Northampton station begging him to pick me up the same day he’d dropped me off. But he never inquired as to what had happened and I never volunteered a reason why. I think he knew but secretly, he was just grateful somebody else’s son had returned.
    I didn’t reveal to anyone the truth of my heritage. I locked Kenneth in a box inside my head and didn’t allow myself to think about him again him for twenty years.
    Doreen reappeared a few months later on the eve of my fourteenth birthday. As three disconnected souls gathered in our hallway, my father and I knew we were too exhausted to go through the charade again.
    I ran to hide in my bedroom without speaking to her and sat on the floor, my back pressed against the door, listening. Downstairs, Arthur turned down her request for forgiveness. She begged with all her heart but for the first time, he refused to relent. Eventually the front door closed and he retired to the kitchen, quietly weeping.
    Later that night, I left the house and found Doreen waiting for me at the end of the garden when she thrust a green box into my hand.
    “This is for you,” she said calmly, and tried to force a smile. “Always remember your mum loves you, no matter how stupid she is.” Inside the box lay a handsome gold Rolex watch. But by the time I looked up, Doreen was already walking away. I didn’t try and stop her.
    With my mother gone for good, I sat on a bench in Caroline’s parents’ garden when Catherine caught sight of me from her bedroom window.
    “Are you alright, Simon?” she asked, and I began to cry for Doreen and everything we’d lost. But I never told her about Kenneth. I promised myself there and then that I would never let Catherine down like Doreen had me. I would never deceive her, fail her, disappoint her or abandon