Hello, have some Arthur angst. Not my best, but I wanted to write some more tonight, and I knew if I agonized too much over this prompt I wouldn't write anything. This takes place between chapters 5 and 6 of TYD, after Al has left home.
Arthur Kirkland was not the sort of man with illusions of his own perfection. Still, if you had asked him fifteen years ago, he probably would have told you it couldn't be that hard not to have many regrets as a parent.
Of course he knew nothing then. He was only just applying to be a foster parent; visions of playing savior to some unfortunate child still played in his mind when he went to bed, hoping tomorrow he might get the call saying he had been approved and would receive his first placement.
He was nervous when Alfred came to live with him, of course. The boy was practically feral, but the first time Arthur looked into those wide, blue eyes, he knew he would do everything in his power to give him a good life.
Now, it seems, he has nothing but regrets. One day, while Mattie is at school, Arthur walks into the boys' bedroom. Cramped but neat, the space hardly looks like two teenage boys have been living there. Well. It's only one now, after all, and Matthew leaves about as many traces of existence as a ghost these days.
Arthur forces himself to look at every thing in the room, to really see it. He doesn't know why. He stares at the top bunk until it physically pains him, willing the huddled outline of its former occupant to appear.
When the ache in his chest grows too strong, he leaves and shuts the door. Then he leans against the wall and closes his eyes, and in the darkness they meet the bright gaze of the child who still lives in his mind.