As you know, last week was the last chapter of The Sheriff, and we bid a fond farewell to Marshall, Lee, Roy, and Dustin.I hope you enjoyed their journey as much as I did. This week finds us going in an entirely different direction, with a new story, and new characters. I hope you will enjoy it. The inspiration for this story was quite unexpected, so let's see where this takes us, shall we? The name of the story is In Pieces. Don't forget to visit the other Briefers and see what's up with them. Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
In Pieces #1 (1.1)
“When will Daddy be here?” Eight-year-old Ryan Fremont
turned impatiently away from the living
room window. He’d been practically glued to the spot ever since lunch, and only
left when his babysitter shooed him away and told him to go play or watch TV.
Mrs. Windom was also his next-door neighbor, and she’d been watching Ryan as
long as he could remember—after school, and sometimes evenings and weekends.
Normally, he was a very obedient charge, but today he was too excited to listen.
Daddy was bringing him a surprise, and Ryan knew exactly what it was going to
be.
A puppy! A little dog of his very own. That was the only
thing in the world Ryan wanted, so what else could it be, right?
“He’ll be here any time now, you’ll see,” Mrs. Windom said
in that soothing voice grown-ups used on kids to get them to behave. “Want some
cookies and milk while you wait?”
The offer was tempting, but Ryan shook his head. He could
always have a snack, but meeting his puppy for the very first time was too
important a moment to miss.
After what seemed like forever, he saw Dad’s car pull into
their driveway, launching Ryan into even great paroxysms of excitement. “He’s home, he’s home!” he sang over his
shoulder.
“Why don’t you go meet him?” Mrs. Windom suggested, but he
was way ahead of her and flying out the door before she even finished.
Daddy was already out of the car. As Ryan watched, he crossed
over to the passenger side and opened the door. A strange woman emerged. Daddy
closed the door, then turned to her and kissed her. Ryan frowned. What did she
have to do with his puppy? And why was Daddy kissing her?
Next the two adults went to the back seat.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Ryan thought. He must have
put the puppy there for the ride. He began to jump up and down in
excitement. Daddy turned and saw him. “Stay
there, kiddo, we’ll be there in just a minute.”
“Yes, Daddy,” Ryan said obediently.
But what they brought out of the back seat was not a puppy.
Instead, it was a small boy, with curly blond hair that reminded Ryan of a
poodle he’d seen once. The boy was younger than Ryan, and he seemed reluctant
to get out of the car. Ryan’s intuition
told him something wasn’t right when Daddy took the boy’s hand in his, once he’d
closed the door.
So where was his puppy?
Daddy and the strange child approached him. The strange
woman walked behind them. He looked up at her, into her eyes. Something about
her gaze was unsettling, so he looked away, back to the child. The boy was very pale, and he had enormous
blue eyes. His mouth was screwed up, and he looked like he was about to cry.
“Ryan, I’d like you to meet Ben,” Daddy said. “Your new
brother.”
Brother? Ryan didn’t have a brother, and didn’t want one.
“Where’s my puppy?” he blurted out. The boy named Ben began
to fidget.
“There’s no puppy,” Daddy said. “I brought you a brother.
And this”—he turned to the woman and put his hand on her shoulder—“is Liza, your new mama.”
All Ryan heard was no puppy. His bottom lip began to quiver
at the greatest betrayal he’d ever experienced in his young life. No puppy? How
could that be?
“Now Ryan, be fair,” his dad was saying. “I told you we’d
talk about a puppy, didn’t I? This is better. Ben’s a brother. You two will be
great friends, I know. And Liza will take good care of both of us, won’t you
sweetheart?”
“You know I will, Robert.”
Ryan was furious and hurt and beyond all sense of reason.
What had his daddy done? Who were these people? He wanted them to go away, to
get out of his life. He didn’t need them, didn’t want them.
“Ryan?”
Ryan saw a tear streak down the other boy’s cheek. They
stared at one another for a long moment, sizing each other up. “It’s your fault
I don’t have a puppy,” he told Ben in a stricken voice. “All your fault. Just
go away!” Without thinking, he pushed
the smaller boy, who fell backward in stunned silence, while Ryan ran into the
house and straight into Mrs. Windom’s arms, sobbing.
Twenty years later…
Ryan Fremont shifted his weight from one foot to the other
and glanced up into the sickly gray St. Louis sky. Not that he cared about the weather, but
anything was better than staring at his dad’s casket. Wondering whether it would rain again kept
him from dwelling on the harsh reality of his father’s death. The clouds seemed to be gathering for a
second assault. At least the rain had let up before they’d exited the chapel
for the cemetery, that was something. Nothing more cliché than a funeral in the
rain. Although maybe there was a certain symmetry to it, as though the showers
were a form of penance, a washing away of sins. The minister who’d performed the graveside
eulogy had spoken the usual platitudes about dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but
didn’t life really begin with water? Well, amniotic fluid, anyway. So maybe it
was apropos that it end in wetness too.
In the end, did it really matter?
to be continued
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