Offal
Conversations about father...
Garrett remembered this rather one-sided conversation; it was the last one he had with his aunt before the strangers marched into the village square. The following day would be the last chance he had to have a day with Elizabeth and the day after that was his fateful solo trip to the swamps for one final hunt of the season before the weather started to turn and most of the animals worth hunting went into hibernation or left the area.
“Why did I have to live with him? There’s room here, why was I never allowed to just, stay here.”
That was a bitter question that had been building in Garrett’s heart for years, one he wanted to ask a number of times but never dared to, and certainly not when he needed to the most as a younger boy.
“You know your father, better than anyone. I’ve done all I could, and I still am.”
Garrett loved his aunt, more than anyone else. Furthermore, he was loyal in that love, and fiercely so. The villagers learned time and again not to disparage her where he could hear it. As young as six he was out past his bed time ruining baskets, putting holes in canoes, and disappearing drying clothes off of lines. They could say all they wanted about his miserly father, they could cast their disapproving glances at him or call him names when they thought they could get away with it, but everyone learned early on to leave his aunt out of it all. She was hurt when he finally asked the question he had been wanting to ask ever since he could walk or run away to the safety of the house on the hill at the edge of the village. He could see that the question touched on a subject that bothered her nearly as much as it did him.
“Are you sure the council wouldn’t have backed you if you made a case for my living here? I surely would have agreed.”
“Garrett…”
He was hurting her, his aunt never cried, not once in front of him, but he saw a single tear run down the left side of her face. Hurting people didn’t much matter to Garrett at sixteen, he was an open wound already. As it turned out, misery really did like company. He cut her off and talked over the top of her, something he never would have done normally.
“He beat me. He starved me. Until I got too big and too self-reliant, that was my every day. You had to have known, everyone in this place knew. None of you did anything to stop it.”
She tried again but he didn’t even let her get through his name before he was calmly, and cruelly speaking loudly over the top of her voice. “He’s told me more times than I can count that I should have died instead of my mother. Do you gave any idea what that does to a child of six, or eight? He once told me he wished that I would die so he didn’t have to be reminded of the family he was supposed to have. Him! His family, the one he never wanted and threw away just as soon as he knew he could with repercussion.”
Garrett’s aunt ran dry of words then and stopped looking at him. He stood and set his book down and crossed the distance so that he was within a few feet of her and still she refused to look up or acknowledge him. “I’m good to be around until I’m not. That’s what I learned most from my time spent here.”