A Sweet Compromise
The afternoon droned on; hot and humid with the promise of rain hanging, fat and pendulous, on the fluffy white clouds. Justin watched the sky, he had much to do, but depression gripped him, needling him with piercing talons of doubt and indecision.
I’m probably going to have to move, his thoughts jostled in his muddled head, but this idea seemed to pop. Of course Jared wouldn’t like the idea at all, so maybe he wouldn’t do it, but he felt like he was losing his son.
Damn woman.
She was dominating his son’s time, and it made him feel worthless.
Yes, that was it, she made him feel irrelevant.
He decided to take a stroll up to the main house and see what they were up to. His son adored her, she had so quickly replaced the mother he’d hardly known in his life. It was so irritating, Rihanna was nothing like Sheila; his Sheila.
No, nothing like her at all!
While he walked the path from his rented cottage to the imposing monstrosity of a house that she lived in, he tried to think of one thing, anything, that made him feel that Rihanna was bad for his boy.
…and of course she had no way of ever filling his wonderful Sheila’s shoes; she didn’t even have any taste, you just had to look at the house to understand that - it was a gross show of opulence; of wealth abused. In his mind's eye he understood all too well that she’d inherited the house, it wasn’t actually her’s, but still…
He kicked at a loose stone in his way and stilled for a moment to watch it spin off the gravel and out across the manicured flower beds. He sighed, even he had to admit that the Sweetpeas she’d planted perfumed the early autumn air with a heavenly fragrance. Damn woman!
A sharp memory of Sheila's wizen body in the week before the cancer claimed her, stuck him senseless. He could still feel her tiny hands clinging to him; begging him to intervene in her pain. Stinging tears sprung unbidden.
Sheila had been so vibrant, so full of wit and fun. The perfect playmate, the ideal confidante, the best wife a man could get.
He wanted to cry, let the tears he’d walled up flow. But men were not supposed to cry. He bit back his sorrow and trudged on.
God, what a sight. As he approached he saw them, they were sprawled out on a rug in the front garden. She was reading to an enthralled looking Jared, and he heard their tinkling laughter reach him. Christ, it sounded like magic.
Damn woman!
Suddenly he realised that Jared was doing as much for her as she was for him. He felt a rough bitterness grab at his gut. She had lost her husband in an accident, two years before he’d lost his wife Sheila. She had his Jared to thank for her laughter; he had none of that salve, no lotion or sweet balm to ease his heart.
“Jared, please come here right now. I want you to come home now.” He spat it out like a seething viper
The pair on the rug turned towards him. Quiet.
Rihanna rose first. She stayed Jared with her palm then strode towards him. The afternoon light caught her hair in a glow and she smiled a wide, bright grin at him.
“Oh, you party pooper, why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself and come and join us?” She paused, and then added.
“I know you don’t like me very much, and I don’t have coffee or cake to offer you, but why don’t we call a truce for Jared’s sake?”
He looked at his son’s face filled as it was with hopeful anticipation.
“Well, one story couldn’t hurt, now could it?” He smiled for the first time in a very, very long time.
Prompt by @mariannewest