Matt Shaw: A Sting in the Tale: A Collection of Short Stories

Esslee wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. See if he could shake some sense into her before it was too late. Too late? What was he thinking? It was already too late for her. Now it was all about damage control. If he got the boy out of the house with minimum fuss, the law might be more lenient on Jade and she might get the help she needed. If they had to come in, and things got ugly, she’d only be making it worse for herself.

“You were asking around. The other parents saw him run off into the woods!” Esslee continued pushing her, hoping that she would start to remember. “He was excited about something but no one could see what. He ran in and he didn’t come back. Does any of this ring a bell?” He paused a moment. Jade was looking at him blankly. “We scoured those woods with some officers and some other volunteers. All of us lined up until late at night — torches in hand. Calling his name.” He sighed. He could tell by the look on her face that he wasn’t getting through to her. She was too far gone.

She smiled and shook her head, “You’re being strange. He’s in the living room. Now — come on — before the ice-cream melts. Grab a bowl.”

Jade collected two bowls and walked through to the living room. Esslee just stood there a moment looking out of the window, shaking his head — hoping that someone could see his gesture and know that it was no good. If they wanted her, and the boy, they would have to come in.

“What are you doing?” Jade’s voice came through from the hallway.

Esslee spun around to see her. She wasn’t talking to him. Her back was to him. He walked over to her side and noticed the boy was by the front door.

“I thought we were going to play outside for a bit?” he said — his voice audibly trembling.

“We are, it’s fine.” Esslee butted in.

“No!” Jade snapped. She turned to Esslee, “No! I told you! We’re going to go and eat ice-cream. I’ve prepared it now.”

“He wants to go outside. I promised him. Come on… Don’t make me look like the bad guy here!”

“I said no!” Jade shouted. The boy flinched at the abruptness of her voice and started to cry.

“Come on, Jade, look at him…” Esslee paused a moment, waiting for Jade to face the boy who wasn’t her son. “LOOK AT HIM!” he shouted. Jade slowly turned and faced the boy. “He isn’t your boy. He needs to go outside because there are people waiting for him out there… Come on, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“What do you mean?” Jade started to panic. “Who is out there? Who wants to take my boy away?”

“He isn’t your boy!” Esslee said again — and he would keep saying it, if need be, until he was blue in the face. “The police. The police are out there and they’re here to take him home.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve already been talking to them,” Esslee confessed.

The boy was still standing by the door crying. He felt as though he was so close to freedom and yet so far. The single thought dancing through his head, wondering whether he’d be able to get out of there before she got to him.

“You’re lying,” Jade accused Esslee. “Why are you doing this?”

“You know why. He isn’t your boy. You act like he is but — deep down — you know. I can see it in your eyes.” Jade’s eyes were indeed red from where she’d been crying earlier. Had everything been okay — in her head — then she wouldn’t have wept. Everything would have been fine and she would have been smiling and full of energy and happiness. He could tell though, just from her body language, that she wasn’t fine. She wouldn’t admit the boy wasn’t Aidan but — deep down — she knew it to be true.

“You’re lying!” she snapped — her voice rising once more.

“Then open the door. Let him go outside and kick the ball around. If I am lying — there won’t be anyone out there.”

Jade looked at the door and then down to the bowls of ice-cream. She started to cry. Esslee was getting through to her. She did know the truth. She did know it wasn’t her boy standing there, also crying albeit for a different reason. She was sad, he was scared.

“We’re going to have ice-cream.”

“If he doesn’t go out now, they’re going to come in…” Esslee warned her. “He needs to leave the house otherwise they might think he is in danger and act accordingly. We need to do this the right way. I promise you, whatever happens, I will stand by you just as I have for everything else we have encountered during the last five years. But — for me to do that — you need to help yourself.”

“Well where is my boy?” she asked. A quiet voice.

“I don’t know. I wish I did but I don’t. We’re still looking for him. We will find him, I promise.”

Jade burst into floods of tears. Esslee approached her and put his arms around her. He turned to the boy and nodded for him to leave. The boy mouthed thank you and opened the door. Voices immediately started to call out to him. His name was Jack. They told him to hurry over to the officers. Some told him not to look back and others were reassuring him that everything was going to be okay. Meanwhile, another group of officers started to advance towards the house.

Esslee stood there, watching them coming. He too had tears streaming down his face as his mind started playing through what would happen next. They’d come in, they’d pull the two of them apart and they’d take her and arrest her, reading her rights. She’d be upset, of course she would, and she’d be screaming — both for her loss of freedom and her missing son. Esslee just hoped — under the circumstances — that the judge would be lenient on her. She doesn’t need to go to prison. She doesn’t need to be locked away like a wild animal. She just needs help. But that in itself was a problem; despite advances in medicines and science — people still didn’t really understand mental health and, a lot of the time, the people who needed proper help fell by the wayside and ended up being treated just the same as the real monsters of the world. Esslee knew for a fact that the boy’s parents would be pushing for a prison sentence. They wouldn’t want this woman on the streets; this crazy bitch who had snatched their son.

Jade pulled away from Esslee and wiped the tears away, “He’s dead, isn’t he?” She was referring to Aidan. His death was something she had feared since he went missing. There was no proof he was dead, though. The police had literally found no trace of him. He had simply disappeared. But the longer he was missing, the less chance he was going to be coming home again. They both knew this. It was obvious when you looked at crimes similar to this. The longer the person missing, the more chance that he or she was dead. They’d no longer be looking for a person but rather a body instead. Jade was still weeping as Esslee tried to calm her down. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said again.

“You don’t know that,” he said. “You can’t think like that. You have to just hope that he is alive — out there, somewhere and that — one day — they’ll not only find him but bring him home too.” It was horrible to think so negatively but Esslee didn’t believe anything that he was saying. Aidan might not have been his child but that didn’t make the thought of him dead any easier. It still hurt him to think like that. But he was a realist and couldn’t help it.

“Ms. Velasquez?” an officer had stepped into the building.

She looked up and saw him; instant panic on her face.

“It’s okay, honey, but you’re going to have to go with the man for a while. Just talk about what happened today at the park.” Esslee tried to break it to her gently.