The Stranger, Mark Ayre [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

"Michael, let Jess go. Please."

"I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on,” Jess said.

"Don't be stupid," said Abbie.

"You're the stupid one," Jess said. "Eddie doesn't have any children. I'm carrying his first. Is that really what this boy thinks? Is that what he believes? He's standing here with a gun; he's obviously unbalanced."

Michael's skin paled. Afraid anger might lend him the confidence to pull the trigger and end Eddie's life, Abbie spoke fast.

"If you're so sure, look at him. Look at Michael, and look at your husband."

"What?" said Jess. "No. What? Why?"

"Look at them," Abbie repeated. "When your husband was a teenager, he slept with his girlfriend's friend and got her pregnant. When the baby was born, he offered to pay the mother decent maintenance if she promised to keep the child out of his life. The mother, a woman named Nell, accepted because she needed the money. Her parents paid her rent in a town many miles away. She only returned with her son, with Michael, when her parents died, and Nell inherited their home."

Jess was still staring at Abbie. "No." Whether she knew it or not, she was refusing to look anywhere else.

"Look at them," Abbie pressed. "Just turn your head. Look."

Still, Jess resisted. Abbie thought she might never look at her husband again if it meant she could ignore the truth of Abbie's words. Abbie was ready to keep trying. Before she needed to, Jess' head snapped to the teen with the gun, then to her husband.

Eddie couldn't look at Jess, but Jess stared at him.

The resemblance between father and son wasn't immediately apparent but was there. More than the way they looked, Eddie's eyes, cast towards his lap, revealed to Jess the truth.

"No," she said. "No. No. Ed, how could you? How could you keep this from me? How could you abandon your own son?"

Shame held Eddie's tongue. He kept his eyes in his lap. Wouldn't look at his wife.

Taking her hand off her stomach, Jess thumped Eddie's leg with a fist.

"Edward Dean, you answer me now. You say you love me, so you answer me right now."

Abbie was watching Michael. The boy hadn't yet pulled the trigger, not because he was riveted by the conversation, but because he hadn't found the courage. Conversation distracted him, gave his fear an excuse. A prolonged period of silence could mark the end of Eddie's life. Then again, so could someone enraging the teen.

Eddie said to Jess, "I'm sorry I never told you about him. We'll talk about it later. Right now, I have a gun pointed at my head. You think I'm an arsehole for not wanting to raise him, but I was a kid; I was stupid. And that I didn't feel up to raising the boy does not mean I deserve to be killed. Or do you disagree, Jess?"

Before Jess could answer, Abbie stepped in. Throughout Eddie's speech, she had watched Michael grow further and further incensed. Knew he had never been closer to pulling the trigger. Realised she needed to retrieve the situation from the brink.

"The boy has a name," said Abbie. “It’s Michael, and how dare you question his actions when you have no idea what he’s suffered because of your abandonment."

Focusing on Michael, Abbie continued, "I get why you're angry. Eddie abandoned you. You tried to reach out, and he rejected you. You grew up in a tiny flat, forced to watch your mother fall apart. Addiction claimed her, and because of that, poverty claimed you. Your life was miserable. Then you returned here, and what do you find? While your mother fell apart and you struggled to put food on the table, the father who abandoned you had found happiness. He had a wife, and a home, no money worries. Worse, while your mother's debts trapped you, while loan sharks banged on the door, you learned Jess was pregnant, and this time, Eddie was sticking around. The father who condemned you to a life of misery was about to bring another child into the world, a child he would treat how you always wanted to be treated. A child he would give the life you had for so long craved. That you saw all that, internalised all that and didn't immediately storm around to attack your father, to demand an explanation, shows you have courage, heart. Two things your father has never shown."

Face crumpled with misery and anger, Jess was staring at her husband again. She wished Michael wasn't there or that Abbie was lying. Wished her husband dared to look at his son. She didn't know what to say. She wished she, too, could be braver.

"I pushed you over the edge today," said Abbie. "You were already tangled up, confused, hurting. I gave you a gun and a speech about what a good father Eddie wanted to be for his unborn child. I gave you means and motive. Few could resist an opportunity at retribution when handed to them on a platter like that. While I was saving Eddie, you came here, pointed a gun at Jess and waited for your father to return. Now all you need is the courage to pull the trigger. Or that's what you think. But I'll tell you what I told Eddie when he wanted to kill Leona—it doesn’t take courage to kill someone you hate. It takes courage to spare them. Your father’s a coward, Michael. I need you to be brave. I'm begging you to be brave."

There were tears in Michael's eyes. He was staring at Eddie. Now his hands were shaking.

"This isn't the same as with Leona."

Michael was on an emotional knife edge. What on Earth was Eddie doing? Did he want to die?

To the cowardly, cheating father, Abbie said, "Just shut up a minute."

But Eddie couldn't, "Leona killed my brother. She was a murderer. I was justified in wanting to end her life. How many children have grown up without a father?