Fall of Hope (Book 1): Real Heroes Don't Wear Capes (4 page)

Smiling,
Bobby views the gap missing where her tooth is gone—a testament
to his father's handy work when she made a birthday cake he didn't
like. She pulls him into her frail embrace, but she's no longer the
curvy woman he knew.

“
How
was school, dear?” She moves so he doesn't stare at the
bruising beneath her eye long enough to start up a conversation about
it.

“
It
w
as
good.” He lowers his head, pretending not to see the
colouration on her face.

“
Do
anything special? I hope you ate your lunch.”

“
Yeah.
I do every time, mum. Nothing special, just the usual.”

When
suffering a dissociative episode, she believes him to be that little
boy on the tassel blanket in the front room. In this state, she
doesn't remember he has outgrown his old favourites. Neither does she
know he has to throw the sandwiches she makes in the trash on his way
to school. He doesn't know what he will do now he no longer has to
return.

When
he tells her he is a big boy now and can get his own lunch, she waves
her hand and makes it anyway when she is like this. So all he can do
is let her so he doesn't hurt her feelings. She doesn't appear to
retain information in this state. Perhaps she has too much to focus
on, or she is looking too far inside herself, but she will not input
anymore.

His
mother taught him not to lie early on, saying it is the worse sin of
all. He is sure he is lying when he goes along with her, but if there
is such a thing as a good lie, then this is it. Although it hurts his
heart to no end to do so.

His
mother’s petite frame shuffles soundlessly on the tiles with
her slippers on. She plucks the towel from the oven's handle and
cleans the glass he left.

“
Mum,
let me do that.”

He
waits for the glass to swap hands, but she drys it and puts it back
in the cupboard.

“
Shepherd's
pie and veg for dinner, hope that's okay.” Her tone pierces
through him, sounding as though she is a brain dead servant.

“
Yeah,
that's my favourite,” he says, holding onto his slender
stomach. It isn't his favourite, far from it, but she won't remember
anyway.

“
It'll
be awhile; I haven't put the oven on yet.” As an afterthought,
she adds, “don't wake your father.”

Bobby
grits his teeth against the latter, but forces a weak smile.

We
can't have that, can we?

When
she speaks no more, he heads upstairs to his bedroom, leaving her
stationary in the centre of the kitchen.

His
father sleeps through the day. If he has been out drinking he can
either sleep until noon, or stay awake and not fall asleep until
noon. In that case, he will wake in the evening ready for opening
time at the pub. And that sleep involves the rest of the house being
silent if they don't want to be on the receiving end of his venom.

As
he creeps up the first set, he avoids the wooden banister to keep the
creaking to a minimum. The empty walls stare back at him as a
constant reminder they are no longer a family. Among their family's
smiling faces, his mother kept paintings that brightened up the
place. One was of a red sailed boat and a lighthouse that was
hauntingly beautiful. His favourite was the field full of blue
flowers around a wishing well.

He
would walk straight past the photograph of him and his brother in
front of a roller coaster. Now, he would give anything to spend one
more day at the fairground with him.

Bobby
passes the room to his left which none of them venture into any more.
It’s his brother's room and off limits, not that he dare enter
there now, anyway.

He
heads into the room straight ahead on the narrow landing. At the end
is the bathroom and his parent's room.

He
throws his bag to the pastel green carpet and kicks it under the bed.
With a deep sigh, he pushes the results from his head.

They
don't matter.

If
his mother cannot remember this day, then why should he want to?

After
undoing his tie and slinging it over his desk chair, he takes a seat
with it at his back. He turns the computer on and waits for the four
year-old to come to life.

Undoing
his shirt and trousers, he wanders about the room wondering what to
do with them. Boys at school had their class mates sign theirs,
leaving messages for a keepsake. Others spoke of setting theirs
alight on a miniature bonfire in their back gardens. But with only
Danny offering to sign his, he cannot decide how to discard them. He
would burn them in the garden if the smoke wouldn't cause his mother
to panic.

Do
I keep them for the reverie, go through the grieving process, or bin
them?

Where
he goes from here is still up in the air, so he throws them and lets
them fall where they may.

Maybe
I'll pick them up once I find a route for this new chapter to begin.

On
the swivel chair in only his boxers, he types in the password and
waits for the desktop screen to start.

Bobby
Ames is good at most things as long as that doesn't involve
collecting friends, or sports. But being decent at most things is
hardly good enough
in the real world. He could blame his
father for the nights he has missed sleep, or waking many times when
he finds sleep. Yet, he also understands he is responsible for his
own study time. So, to please Mr Spencer, he will claim the blame for
his failings.

In
the next room, the headboard smacks against the wall, followed by
movement on the mattress. His father is stirring.

“
And
let the fun begin,” Bobby mutters under his breath.

“
So,
what are you planning on doing now, hey?”

Bobby
doesn't have to turn to know the voice comes from the guy now sitting
on his bed where it was empty moments previous. With arms stretched
across his thighs with a book open in his hands, the guy glances
upward with amusement. When he drops the book to the bed, he slips
his finger inside to keep his page.

“
Haven't
a clue,” Bobby admits.

He
found the book, 'The Little Prince' by
Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
in the drawer underneath his underwear. What he was looking for,
Bobby doesn't even want to know.

After
reading it for the first time, the guy asked, “Is your dad
drinking to forget his shame like the drunkard?”

To
him, Bobby asked a question of his own. “Is the planet you come
from so small you can watch the sun setting one side, then walk
around a few steps to see it setting the opposite side?”

They
spoke long into the night that night. He spoke about his father and
their situation, answering all the questions the guy asked. Yet he
answered none of Bobby’s. Although he learned little about the
guy that night, their conversation helped him. He didn't realise how
much stuff he needed to get off his chest.

The
mysterious guy loves the book. He says he interprets it in a new
light each time he reads it, even after Bobby reminded him it is a
book for children.

“
You
could do with reading it again, you're starting to sound rather
adult,” he chuckled.

Bobby
never picked it up again because Benji brought it him. He was the one
who first read it to him, so to read it now would mean hearing
Benji's voice in his head.

He
pulls up the Internet browser and prepares to engage in meaningless
conversation on social media. It will fill the time until his mother
calls him--if she calls him. It wouldn't be the first time she has
forgotten to make the dinner while in this state.

And
she always regrets it.

It
might seem odd for a person with no social life to waste their time
socialising on the Internet. Yet, it's perfect. Bobby has worked his
way to over a thousand 'friends' on one networking site, although he
still struggles to initiate a conversation from behind a screen.

He
knows none of these 'friends' in the real world, but he connects with
them more than anyone around here. He has found like-minded
individuals that will not ridicule his interests and has even spoken
to girls.

I
wish I could stop blushing though.

Talking
to these people helps dissolve the loneliness that creeps up day by
day. And there are plenty of people who enjoy such arts as poetry and
literature he can talk to and share with. And best of all, he can
shut the computer down if things don't go right. Or he can block
anyone who is offensive where it isn't so easy in the real world.

“
Well,
you better give it some thought, otherwise you'll end up in this shit
hole your entire life. You don't want to end up a drunk like your old
man, do you?”

Bobby
grits his teeth. The guy knows how to strike the bad cords with him.
More than that though, the guy knows exactly what he is thinking to
play to his fears.

“
If
you have any ideas, then please share. I'm welcome to suggestions.”

“
If
you go into your brother's room and take what I told you to, then the
rest is a piece of pie.”

“
I
think you mean
a
piece of cake
.”

“
It's
bad luck to say that; only bad things spawn from those words.”

“
I
didn't think you believed in superstition and luck.”

“
It's
not superstition. It's fact.”

This
guy turned up around the time his brother died. Now, he refuses to
leave.

After
a month of mutism following the accident, Bobby went to see a doctor.
If his father cared, he'd have been close to beating words out of
him.

With
his mother's concern and the doctor's approval, he got an appointment
to see a counsellor. She was the doctor's wife who turned out to be a
shrewd, miserable
old bat
just like him. Bobby rejected the
anti-depressants they kept trying to shove down his throat. He was
thirteen, not a middle-aged, mentally unstable man with tons of debt
and relationship problems.

“
It's
natural for bereavement to take on such forms following tragic loss,
especially with him being young and his death coming out the blue. If
the child has a strong bond with the victim it is tough to come to
terms with. And with him being responsible for his death . . .”

That
isn't what the woman said to his mother, but it's what he heard. He
and his brother were tight—they would be forever—but what
would any of them know about it?

After
that time, he finally spilled words to the woman about hearing voices
inside his head. She jotted his confession in the note pad on her
lap, one leg thrown over the other in a three-quarter length tweed
skirt. The woman was drab, and judging by the look in her eyes, she
didn't understand, or thought he was full of shit. Maybe both.

She
hadn't helped with her assumptions that the voices could be his inner
voice replicating his brother. But after the last session of him
feeling worthless, he lied to his mother by telling her the sessions
cured him. He told her everything would be okay just so he wouldn't
have to go back there again.