I lay still in my bunk. It's late...but I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about...him. About Lennie. My Lennie.
I have no doubt - it has to be true. I see myself in him. But why did fate lead him here? Is there any way for me to resolve this, to close the deep wound that was reopened when he arrived?
I hear his steady breaths in the next bunk, his huge, gentle form in a deep slumber. Why did I do this to him? I left him with his "Aunt" and I ran off to escape the consequences of what I had done. I didn't think of what would happen to him, Hell, I didn't think of what would happen to Clara. I didn't think that they would be outcasts in a tight-knit town. But then when I went back...and I found out...I ran again. I didn't want to be associated with them. I ran off to make a living for myself, to make a name for myself, to live a good life, and look where it's got me.
I ran away from my son and here he is again, his presence taunting me and frightening me.
Oh, Lennie. Watching him in the barn with that pup makes me tremble. There he is, my son, holding a tiny creature as if it were his own boy.
How do I know he's my son? He looks like me. I'm shocked George didn't catch it, but Lennie's the spitting image of his father, only bigger and more stretched out like his mother was. And his mother...Clara, my cousin. We fell in love when I was ten, and soon, Lennie came along.
What will I do? What can I do? I can't tell anyone. All I can do is treat Lennie kindly (though not too kindly) and love him behind my prison bars.
He's dead. It's the first thing I think when I hear the gunshot. Lennie is dead. My boy, my son...he's dead.
Sorrow doesn't strike me as plainly as I thought it would. I just feel empty, guilty - guilty that I abandoned him, that I never fathered him. Guilty for robbing him of frolicking in the meadows, herding cattle together...I ran off, and thus robbed him of a future.
And robbed George of a best friend.
We've come upon George, who sits, anxious. And so next thing I know, I'm next to him, comforting him, and all I can think is, Lennie, Lennie, let me make it up to you, let me help you, let me be your father...and the next thing I know I'm offering George a drink...
And I feel Lennie hugging me with his big, boyish arms from up there in Heaven...and I am okay.