Mary’s Son Read online

  Mary’s Son

  Mary’s Son

  A Tale of Christmas

  Darryl Nyznyk

  © 2010 Darryl Nyznyk. Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web—without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, please contact Cross Dove Publishing, LLC, P.O. Box 7000-97, Redondo Beach, CA 90277-8710.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental. We assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein.

  First printing 2010

  ISBN 978-0-9656513-5-6

  LCCN 2010921738

  DEDICATION

  To my wife, Loretta, and our daughters,

  Laura, Sarah, Julia, and Hannah,

  so they will always remember the truth;

  To Kelly, Wendy, Kaitlin, Kendall, Jeana,

  Alex, Meg, and Autumn, who joined our daughters

  as the first to experience this tale; and

  To all who wish to live the true peace

  and wonder of Christmas.

  - 1 -

  Jared Roberts was a man—thirteen years old—but a man nevertheless. He reached manhood suddenly, three months after his father disappeared. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It just kind of happened. While his mother, three sisters, and baby brother prayed Joe would return, Jared realized he wouldn’t.

  Joe Roberts had left almost a year before—Christmas Eve morning. He was going to pick up some “last minute things,” but he never returned. He simply vanished.

  By nightfall, Jared’s mother, Mary, was frantic. Joe had never gone off without telling her. Although she tried to hide her fear from the kids, she couldn’t. Soon they were all worried.

  When Mary called the police, they didn’t show much interest.

  “Your husband’s a grown man. He’s only been gone a day, hasn’t he? Give it some time,” they’d said. But by the end of the Roberts’ family’s worst Christmas ever, the police had to agree something was wrong.

  The day Jared became a man, he decided the reason his father wasn’t coming back was because he was dead. Although no one had found a body, Jared knew that was the only answer. He figured nothing else could keep his dad away from the family.

  “Responsibility, son,” Joe always said to Jared. “We don’t run from responsibility. We take it head on and stick together as a family. No one will take care of us, and we should never expect anyone to. We take care of ourselves.”

  Joe would never leave his family like so many other fathers from the Sink had left theirs. “The Sink” was the name even the residents of the slums of East Penford used when referring to their part of town. It was the lowest point, by elevation, and, everyone agreed, it was the area to which all the filth drained. None who lived outside the Sink dared venture within its borders, and most who lived inside spent their lives trying to escape. Joe Roberts dreamed of leaving the Sink; but the dream always included his family. Joe wouldn’t leave without the family because he wasn’t like the other fathers. He was proud, and he was strong. Most importantly, though, Joe was responsible. That’s why Jared believed Joe was dead. He’d be with his family if he wasn’t.

  Jared took his father’s instruction to heart; he stepped up when his family needed it. He took a part-time job sweeping the factory floors at Stone Industries after school. That was the company for which his father had worked. The little money he earned helped Mary, who worked two jobs of her own while Jared’s nine-year-old sister Amanda took care of the five-year-old twins and two-year-old Billy after school.

  For the first several months Jared wore a brave face. His siblings cried and asked for “daddy,” but Jared never did. He was tough, a street kid who could handle anything. He figured part of his job was to hold the others together and show them he could be strong for them. But something started to happen around Halloween.

  Jared hated the work at the factory. It didn’t pay much, not enough to make a difference anyway, and he began to realize he didn’t like all this “responsibility” stuff if it meant long hours of school and work with only a few pennies to show for it. To make matters worse, he heard comments and noticed the looks from the others at the factory. While the looks had been there all along because, he figured, they felt sorry for him, whispered comments about his father took him back to the day, three days before his father disappeared, when he overheard his parents talking in hushed, urgent tones.

  Jared peeked into the kitchen that day and was shocked to see his father crying. He pulled back sharply behind the wall and slumped to the floor. He barely heard his father explaining that he’d been fired from his job at Stone Industries. The words didn’t mean much to Jared at the time, but now they meant everything.

  Whether Joe was dead or he had done the unthinkable and left the family, Jared suddenly understood the reason. His father disappeared because the company at which he’d worked for ten years fired him less than one week before Christmas. The comments Jared was hearing were that Joe had been fired because he’d stolen from the company. Jared knew that wasn’t true. He would have known it even if he hadn’t heard his father’s tearful denial because he knew his father. Joe Roberts would never steal…or would he…if the family really needed it?

  The fact was that Stone Industries had ruined Jared’s life. It chased his father away, made his mother work two jobs, and forced him into a never ending cycle of meaningless work that paid him nothing. The family was in need because of the wrong done to his father. It was a terrible need as Christmas approached again. Jared knew what he had to do, and he was angry enough to do it.

  It was on a bitterly cold night less than a week before Christmas that he met the other members of his gang in the town’s abandoned rail yard. They were meeting to finalize a plan Jared had been working on since Halloween. The thirteen-year-old man stood before the glassless window frame of the old depot and stared up the hill to the lights of Penford Heights.

  OUTSIDE the depot a boy skittered amidst moonlit shadows of rusted railcars. At the ramshackle building the boy hesitated, glanced cautiously about the grounds, and slipped through the battered entry. Inside, wayward beams of moonlight illuminated the fire-ravaged remains of the once-thriving station. The boy spied two figures crouching in the darkness behind Jared, who was pointing to a large Christmas-lit house on the hill.

  “That’s it, guys…Jonas Stone’s house,” the boy heard Jared say as he slunk in and sat down next to the other two.

  “Sorry I’m late,” whispered the boy. Michael “M.J.” Johnson was a short, skinny twelve-year-old who came by the nickname “M.J.” because of his love of basketball and his dream to someday be like Michael Jordan. “My dad came home tonight. He’s tearin’ our place apart…” his voice trailed off to silence as Jared turned and stared hard at him through the gloom.

  “We don’t need excuses,” Jared said. “You gotta be here if you wanna be part of us.”

  Jared’s look withered M.J., but he held his head up and nodded. Jared turned his attention to the boy next to M.J. “What’d Hank say, Hammer?”

  Hammer was Joey Rodriguez, a big, strong thirteen-year-old who fashioned himself the best baseball player in the world, next to Jared. Next to Hammer sat Roger “Burner” Claiborne, another skinny boy, taller than M.J. and the fastest runner of all, next to Jared, of course
.

  “The party’s on the twenty-second,” Hammer answered.

  “How’s he know that?” Jared asked.

  Hammer smiled. “The maid. He got it from the maid. She’s got the hots for him.” M.J. and Burner started to giggle until they realized Jared wasn’t laughing. “She’s working at the party,” Hammer finished after shoving M.J. and Burner.

  “Did he give you a layout of the house?” Jared asked.

  Hammer reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded paper. “Yeah…but he wants a cut. He says he’ll get us if we stiff him.”

  “He’ll get his cut. Let’s see it,” Jared said. He, Hammer, and Burner leaned in to view the plan in the moon’s dim light. M.J. held back, fidgety and unsure.

  “Hey…Jared…guys…I don’t know. I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

  “Whatsa matter, M.J.…scared?” jeered Burner.

  “I’m not scared.… It doesn’t seem right.… I mean, it’s not ours,” M.J. stammered angrily.

  Burner and Hammer squawked like chickens. Jared pushed Burner and said, “Shut up, you guys.” He turned to M.J., “Whose is it?”

  “It’s not ours,” M.J. answered sheepishly. “My mom says we got to take care of ours and leave to others what’s theirs.”

  “Yeah, M.J., and where’s that gotten you? A father who’s a drunk and hardly ever around and a life where you got nothin’ and will never have anything.” He chuckled, turned, and stepped slowly back to the window frame. His mind wandered for a moment. In his early years Jared had been one of the “lucky kids” in the Sink because he’d actually had a father at home. He had a father who worked and cared for his family, a father who was there. But that ended a year ago, and he was just like all the rest now.

  Jared turned back to M.J. “You think doing the right thing will help you and your sisters get outta here.” He laughed sadly. “No way, M.J. We’ll be here forever unless we take what we need.”

  “That’s not true, Jared. We’re workin’ hard to get outta here,” M.J. said.

  “You ever seen anyone leave other than by jail or just runnin’ out on others?” Jared sneered bitterly. He leaned against the window frame and stared again at the lights on the hill. “This is our life,” he said angrily. “We got to make our own way. Like they do on the hill,” he pointed. “And we’ve got to make them pay for what they’ve taken from us.”

  “They aren’t stealin’, Jared,” M.J. offered.

  Jared turned slowly, shaking his head, while Burner and Hammer sat quietly, not wanting to get in the way of what Jared was going to do to M.J.

  “What do you think they’re doing?” Jared asked. “They do whatever it takes, and they don’t consider it stealing. Money’s the only reason they get respect, so they get it however they can. They got the bucks, and we don’t. We’re going to even things out a bit.”

  Burner spoke up softly, “Maybe M.J.’s right. No one’s been able to get close to one of the big houses before. They got cops.…”

  Jared turned sharply. “What’s wrong with you guys? Don’t you get it? This is our chance. We do this, something nobody else could do, and we’re somethin’ here. We’re not the dirt under Jonas Stone’s boots anymore like everyone else is. We won’t have to work for him for slave wages, afraid of being fired. We could make our own way.”

  Jared stared at his friends. They bowed their heads, ashamed of their fears.

  “They owe us!” he said angrily. “We’ve got to take it ’cause they sure aren’t going to hand it over. We got no choice.”

  Hammer and Burner nodded and turned to M.J. The youngest of the group had no more words. He knew his mother was right, but these were his friends…his best friends…the friends who would be there for him when he needed them. His code of responsibility to them would not let him turn away. M.J. eyed each of them before he nodded and joined them.

  - 2 -

  The next morning, in the house on the hill above the rail yard, Sarah Stone woke and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She stretched lazily and glanced around her oversized bedroom. The eleven-year-old had a private bathroom and a walk-in closet the size of most bedrooms. She lay amid satin sheets and a plush goose down comforter on her queen-sized canopy bed, her long, curly hair strewn about her. Slowly, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked toward her window, where she saw streaks of rain. She frowned at the weather and immediately began to consider her options for the day.

  “Anna,” she called.

  When there was no response, she called again, this time a little louder.

  Again no response.

  “Anna!” she finally shouted and leaned over to her bed-stand to angrily press a call button.

  Within seconds her door burst open, and Anna, a pretty, olive-skinned girl in her early twenties ran in, breathing hard.

  “You are awake, Miss Sarah,” Anna said, trying to smile.

  “Yes. I want to get up, now,” Sarah responded haughtily and threw off her covers.

  “Shall I start a bath, Miss Sarah?”

  “Yes, and get my blue denim outfit. I’m going to the mall today.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows, turned toward the bathroom, and smiled. She knew something Sarah had apparently forgotten, and she relished the thought of Sarah’s bitter disappointment when the spoiled girl realized she wasn’t going anywhere today. It wasn’t that Anna was a mean person. She didn’t like for people to be sad. It was simply that Sarah was such an obnoxious brat, who treated all the hired help so badly that some of them, Anna included, actually smiled when the young mistress suffered disappointment. Anna had heard the young girl hadn’t always been this way. When her mother was alive, she had been such a pleasant child, some of the older help said. But that was long ago, and the only Sarah Anna knew was the current version; and she didn’t like her very much.

  “Is my father home?” Sarah asked. She was standing in front of her mirror, frowning, testing her look of superiority before she turned back to Anna.

  “Yes, Miss Sarah.”

  “Good. Tell him I’d like him to take me to the mall today.”

  “He’s in a meeting in his study, Miss Sarah. He said no one was to disturb him.” Anna smiled as she turned to the girl’s closet.

  “But, it’s Sunday.…” Sarah pouted for a moment before she realized she was showing weakness. She turned again to Anna, who was making the bed and laying out the blue outfit.

  “Well…then tell Brockton to have the car ready out front,” Sarah rallied.

  “Oh…did you forget, Miss Sarah? Mr. Brockton quit last night. He believed it was you who poured jalapeño sauce in his tea. He was very angry. Miss Grundick will look tomorrow for a new driver for you,” Anna said before walking back to the bathroom.

  Sarah turned to hide her disappointment. She hated the thought of being cooped up in the house all day.

  Sarah had, indeed, sabotaged Brockton Smith’s tea. It was just a joke. He should never have taken it so seriously. Anyway, she never cared all that much for Mr. Smith. He was always such a grouch. She smiled as she remembered the look on his face when he first tasted the extra-hot jalapeño in his tea. It was that look of bulging eyes set wide in his quickly reddening face, mottled by sudden drops of perspiration, that made the prank and her current predicament almost bearable. Sarah turned and walked slowly to her window, where she tried to think of something else to do on this rain-spattered day.

  “Will that be all, Miss Sarah?”

  “Yes…for now,” she answered.

  Sarah stared absently through the water rivulets, contemplating her ill fortune, when suddenly she caught sight of a plump little man standing on the sidewalk, outside the grounds of her home. He wore a dark suit and a round-top, narrow-brimmed bowler set high atop a shock of white hair. He clutched a small black case in one hand and seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

  The man stood in front of a granite-pillared, wrought-iron gate that guarded the Stone estate. The rain, now pouring, plastered
his beard and the hair beneath the hat. He glanced up and squinted as if he was noticing for the first time that it was raining.

  Sarah leaned closer to the glass to get a better look, but her breath fogged the pane. She rubbed the glass quickly and shifted position, only to find that the man now held a black umbrella above his head. At least she believed he held the umbrella because no other explanation for its existence came to her mind. The umbrella was open and suspended at the proper height to protect the man from the rain. It looked, however, as if he wasn’t holding it—as if it really was just hanging above his head, until he finally seemed to reach out and grab the handle. But Sarah knew that couldn’t be. He must have been holding it all along and had simply opened and lifted it above his head while she wiped the window. When the heavy gate began to swing open in front of him, even though he appeared to make no movement toward it, Sarah knew something strange was happening.

  She followed the man’s progress through the gate, up the driveway, and toward the front door, until she was sure he was coming to visit. She then jumped away from the window, ran to her closet to don her robe and slippers, and ran out the door. This visit was sure to occupy at least a part of her morning.

  THE plump man stood a shade less than five feet five inches tall. His weight was something he never discussed, for he knew it was too much. His ruddy cheeks and button nose were framed by long white hair and a beard. His round face seemed always to be smiling. The man pushed his wire-rim glasses firmly onto the bridge of his nose as he found himself standing before two massive doors. He closed and leaned his umbrella against the door jamb, shook the water from himself, grabbed the heavy gold knocker, and struck the door twice.