The beginning is a flash back. It is a little bitty and I am a bit worried about it. Sorry if it is crap,
Chapter 10 The Joys Of Having Children
"How much for the boy?"
"An extra fifty."
"That is some pretty boy you've got there, what is his name?"
"Call him what you like. I just call him boy."
"Some mother you are."
"Do I tell you how to raise you children? If I was a better mother then you wouldn't have any fun now would you?"
"How did you know I had kids?"
"They all do. Do you want me to stay and watch or should I leave?"
"Leave."
She got up and left not even waving goodbye to her son. The little boy blinked his large red eyes at the stranger.
"You can call me daddy."
All I had ever wanted was a family.
Since I was a little girl all I could dream about was having lots of children.
My back up plan was to become a nursery teacher. I figured that if I couldn't have children I could at least teach them. I even got a teaching degree…but by the time I had completed it I had met my husband and we had planned a family all of our own.
I felt really lucky that I had met a man who felt the same way I did, we would stay up late at night talking about how we would have five or even six children…
When I became pregnant with Tala I couldn't stop smiling. I smiled for nine months straight, even through the morning sickness. I was determined that I would be the best mother in the world. Much better than my angry drunk of a mother.
But life isn't fair.
When I was little, really little, my father would read me fairy tales. We would curl up on my bed while my mum was passed out somewhere in the living room and he would read me all of the classics: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow white…they all married Prince Charming. Once I asked my father if they all married the same man, he had laughed and said 'yes'. When I had asked why he had looked at the door and whispered 'Because love based on looks doesn't last and that is all love at first sight is.' I told him that that wasn't fair and he answered 'Life isn't fair.' and closed his books.
He left us a month later. I still saw him from time to time, he would smile and ruffle my hair, he would ask me how nursery was or school, but he wasn't my father anymore. He wasn't my father anymore and it wasn't fair…life wasn't fair.
I don't want Tala to lose his father.
After Tala was born the doctor told me that I couldn't have anymore children. That if I did I would die. I cried for months and became very depressed. My husband helped me through that, he pointed out that we still had one child and we could still adopt.
My husband was a wonderful man.
Over the years adopting turned to fostering. I don't know how it happened, I only knew that I wanted to help some poor child without parents. I wanted to have my large family, I wanted life to be fair.
It took a long time for us to get permission. Strange that anyone can just get pregnant and have a child but if you want to foster you have to fill in 214 forms (I counted) and suffer months of screening.
And what did we get after all of that? We got Kai.
When they told us about him my heart broke. Smuggled into the country by someone arrested for holding. No family and nowhere to go. The child had barely spoken since they had saved him and the social workers thought that he may have suffered severe psychological damage. I thought that I could heal him.
They told me that they believed he had been smuggled in as some part of an eastern European prostitution ring. My heart was captured by the tragedy of his story. Maybe if I had thought about it rationally I would have taken another child, maybe if I had just looked into those dead eyes, maybe if I had noticed the way my husband was looking at him even then…
Does it make me a monster that I don't like him? That I didn't like him even then? I just wanted to help the most tragic case, go for the most extreme situation. I wanted to be the best mother in the world and I didn't even think about how Tala would react.
I wish that Tala had hated him. Maybe he did at first…maybe he still does I have seen them fighting. I have seen them kissing. No mother wants to see her son kiss anyone like that.
He took them from me: my husband, my son. Stole them right from under my nose and never said a word to me. He has been with us for years and he has barely even acknowledged me.
I was becoming more and more frustrated…angry…hurt…I needed to talk to someone.
The mothers of the neighbourhood shunned me. I had brought a plague upon their families, ruined them and their lives. Kai had crawled and eaten out all of our insides, made us all hollow.
And then she came. She was new, she was untouched, she had no about the parasite that was infecting us. They all broke down eventually each mother of the neighbourhood visited her. I think that she needed to hear it. She needed to know why the street stunk of tension, why ever wife acted like a widow. She needed a reason why her brother had died, a good reason that made him less of a villain. It was only natural that I visit her too…
We talked for hours. She told me what the others had said. She told me that maybe it was best to call social services and let them sort it out. She told me that Kai should be taken somewhere he could get help, professional help.
I ate it all up and I agreed.
When I got home he was waiting for me at the kitchen table and I knew that he knew.
"Did you have a nice chat?" he asked and it was the most he had ever said to me.
"Yes, thank you." I took a seat.
"And you got it all out of your system?"
I was too shocked to answer.
"Good." he continued. "I will give you ten percent of my profits if you keep your mouth shut from now on."
"You think that will make this alright?"
"Twenty and I will give you your husband back."
"Give him back? He loves you."
"No. he just loves the fact that I am not you. Men are like that, sometimes they just want something that is not their wives."
"Maybe I don't want him back."
"I wouldn't blame you. But I meant that I would stop fucking him, what happened between the two of you afterwards would be up to you."
"And if I talked?"
"You would look as bad as he would. Your have known about this for months and said nothing. In the eyes of the law you are just as guilty as he is."
"And you?"
"Am a poor child being used as a plaything."
"You've killed someone."
"And I have already been tried for that."
"Why are you even offering me a deal then? If you have this all figured out."
"I want to keep things simple and clean."
"Clean?"
"What is your answer?"
"Why do you hate me? I only wanted to be your mother…I wanted to help you."
"I don't need any help. Not from you."
"Did you have a mother? Before they brought you here."
"My mother is dead."
"Was she nice?"
"She was dead."
"When she was alive."
"She was dead."
"And your father? Was he dead too?"
"Do you accept the deal or not."
He was talking like an adult. He gaze was cold, his language clipped, if my eyes were closed and his voice was deeper I would think that he was sixty. No child should sound so tired.
"Twenty percent and you don't touch my husband again."
He nodded and for a moment he was just a child. I could tell that the questions about his parents had unsettled him. For a moment he was just the little boy who needed my help.
"I will give you your payment every Friday."
"What about Miss Grainger?" I was curious to know if he would kill again.
"I have already dealt with that."
"And Tala?"
"What about him?"
"I want you to drop him as a client as well."
"Tala isn't my client he has never paid me a penny."
"Then what…?" he was gone before I finished. I had made a deal with the devil. A devil who seemed to be having an affair with my son.
At least he would dump my husband. I hoped that it would make him suffer.
Tomorrow I would make Kai dinner. But not my husband.
Because life wasn't fair, but at least this way I could keep my son.