Perspectives

His Father

I try to tighten my hold around my sobbing two-year-old son as we make our way to the rundown shack at the edge of the Seam. With our blonde heads, fair complexions, and clean clothes, we stand out like sore thumbs, and the glaring eyes that stare at us from broken windows make sure to remind me of how much of a bad idea this could possibly be.

The merchant class avoids the Seam like the plague. It is surprising, and also inexplicably sad in my eyes, that even in a district as small as ours, already fenced and segregated to the edges of Panem, its inhabitants have decided to increase the unnecessary divide by pushing its poorer dwellers, united equally in their misery and colouring, to the outskirts. In District 12, the Seamers are doomed to their mines and to the grey dust surrounding their forgotten streets, but I'm one of the very few members of the merchant class that has limited interaction with them. This is of course due to the absolute necessity of my wares. They hate me just as the rest of my class, but I help in keeping them fed, and possibly that is one of the reasons why their reaction to me brazenly walking towards the Everdeen shack is limited only to suspicious looks without any physical demonstration.

At the moment however, as my son clings tightly to my neck, and the blood pours out of the side of his head, I would have been ready to pick a fight, and win it, hands down, in order to get to the healer of this area. "We're almost there, Peeta," I whisper soothingly. "Mrs Everdeen will make your head all better," I tell him, as I knock on the cracked wooden door.

May Everdeen opens the door and only takes one look at Peeta before setting aside any emotions that my surprise visit, after all these years, may have generated. She steps back and lets me in without a word, before unlatching my son gently from my neck and setting him on the kitchen table.

"I'm so sorry for intruding like this," I begin. "The apothecary in Town has been taken ill and there was so much blood - " I stop suddenly when she looks at me in alarm.

Of course, the apothecary is her father, you moron.

"What's wrong with him?" she asks quickly, and the sharp tone in her voice shows me that, for now at least, she is asking about the old apothecary.

"Just a cold, don't worry May," I respond, trying to reassure her while willing her with my eyes to turn her attention towards Peeta, who is still hiccuping in his tears.

"I was made to stop worrying years ago, Wheaton," she replies with a wry smile and a nod, "but I'm glad that it's nothing serious. Let's look at this little man now," she adds, directing a warm smile towards my son.

"He was at the bakery with me, he slipped off his stool and hit his head with the corner of the counter," I explain, trying to keep the panic and guilt off my voice. "I didn't know what to do, he was crying so much..."

May examines his cut and looks at me carefully. "Is it really that, Wheaton? Did she-"

"No!" I interrupt before she can go further, and wince at how widespread and well known my home situation seems to be. "He's so young, and small, I would never let her...No, May, as long as I can keep him away from her, I do," I admit sadly. As tragic as it may sound, it is true though. I do keep my two year old son away from his mother, even though I cannot understand how anyone could possibly want any harm to befall on him. His brothers had not needed such protection when they were his age, Naan had been strongly desired by both of us, and serious and well behaved as he always was, he was the pride of his mother. Barley was also planned, and though not the girl Leila had wished, he was such a cheerful daredevil that as soon as he could walk, he pretty much forgot all about his parents as he rushed all over the place, on his secret expeditions and fanciful missions. We couldn't keep up with him, so we let him be, other than trying to get him to reach adulthood in one piece.