Just to say, I know nothing about purchasing guns in America so forgive me if the gun purchasing scene is unrealistic! Also I don't know if Bailiffs are called Bailiffs in America but in England they come and take away your belongings if you owe money. I'll happily change it if it's the wrong word! Thanks for reading this story and for bothering to review. I've loved writing it and am itching to write another, although I don't have any ideas! Feel happier with back stories as I don't think I could write witty dialogue for Seth.
Chapter Seven
Now, six months later, he stood in his living room, wife well on her way to alcoholic oblivion, older son out roaming the streets doing God only knew what. Despite a new, albeit lower paid job which he worked at twelve hours a day, six days a week, they were three months behind in the rent and had defaulted on the payment plan set up by the hospital after Ryan was discharged. He had been told to expect the bailiffs any day now and there was not a shit thing he could do about it. He kicked off his boots and headed for bed.
The grim light of a Fresno morning forced him awake. He had slept badly, like every other night recently. Despite the physical exhaustion, which racked his body, his mind would just keep on going, turning over idea after fruitless idea to get themselves out of this mess. More often than not, when he did sleep, he would wake up shaking with fear, drenched in sweat. He couldn't escape, even in his dreams.
He stumbled through to the living room to find Ryan sitting silently on the couch watching cartoons. He looked at his father questioningly, eyes heavy with sleep and bed head hair.
"Where's Trey?" asked his father.
"Out" replied Ryan without bothering to look up again, as he returned to the cartoon.
Jim sighed. When had Trey deliberately started to withdraw himself from family life, if you could call Atwood life family life? Was it when the arguments and the fights had started? Jim would be accusing Dawn of pouring money down her throat while she would retaliate that it went up in smoke, alluding to Jim's one vice. Had Trey retreated from them when Dawn had given up all pretence of being a mother?
Trey had had enough of watching his mother neglect the home, neglect herself and him, but most of all Ryan. Trey was old enough to take care of himself, but Ryan was too young to fend for himself. He still needed a Mom, a Mom who would clean his knee when he fell over, cuddle him when he cried, read him bed time stories. This poor kid was lucky if he got one square meal a day.
Jim sat down heavily, totally defeated. How had he not noticed the effect of the last few months on his sons? He'd been so busy trying to keep the house of cards that was their precarious finances from collapsing, that he had failed to notice that Trey had begun to hang out with the wrong crowd and that Ryan, always the quiet watchful one, had totally withdrawn into himself as he tried to make sense of the crazy world he was growing up in.
Jim forced himself away from his thoughts and went into the kitchen. He cleaned up yesterday's debris and prepared some cereal for himself and Ryan. They sat eating the last of the budget cornflakes at the table in silence. Ryan barely lifted his head as he finished his cereal, picked up the empty bowl to put in the sink and returned wordlessly, with his Spiderman figure in hand, to the couch.
Jim washed and shaved and told Ryan that he would return later after work. The little boy nodded and continued to stare at the TV screen. Dawn emerged, disheveled, from the bedroom. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin pale and dull.
"I'm off to work," he announced sharply.
She wrapped her robe around herself tightly and looked Jim in the eyes.
"I'm sorry," she mouthed.
Ryan watched from the couch, hugging his knees to his chest as he prepared for another long day without his father.
As Jim let himself in to the Atwood home that evening, something felt different, wrong. He walked through the kitchen to the living room. The place was in darkness but there, huddled on the floor together sat his family. His eyes swept round. There was nothing left, no couch, no TV, no lamps, nothing. They'd even taken the tatty little armchair in the corner. Ryan looked up at Jim with sad reproachful eyes.
"They took my Spiderman toys..."
A switch tripped in Jim Atwood's head. He ran blindly into the bedroom. Tearing through what was left in the closet, he found a small package he had hidden from Dawn just a few days previously. Inside was two hundred dollars, money she knew nothing about, money that he had earnt from an extra job he had picked up from one of the contractors.
He made his way down town, barely aware of his actions. He could just get there in time before it closed.
Later that night Jim slipped out of his home unnoticed, as his wife and kids lay sleeping in their near empty home. With the revolver in his pocket, he headed straight for the all night opening convenience store in the center of town. He took a deep breath before he stepped over the threshold. He needed money and he needed it quick. He knew what he had to do.
Ryan Atwood's mother had let him down his whole life.
Ryan Atwood's father had never let him down.
Until now.
The End