A Kingdom of Our Own

Chapter Ten - Runaway

It was well into the early hours of the morning by the time Dalton finally returned home, nearing three o’clock. He could have got back a little earlier, had he not made a detour to a 24 hour 7-Eleven convenience store to pick up a copy of the evening newspaper. Laying out on the field with Harry, talking, he had found a spare quarter in his back jeans pocket, and so he figured he’d might as well get one to have a look at what had been happening lately in the Majors.

The front page headline was titled in bold “British Government Decriminalise Homosexuality”, but Dalton paid little attention to that. In fact he skimmed past the great majority of the articles in no more than a blink of an eye, as he made his way home along the dark, desolate streets of suburban Portland. That was until he reached the sports section. Even that ended in nothing but disappointment though, with the page being rather dry on news. Clearly not a lot had been going on lately in the world of sport, although admittedly, even if there had been a juicy trade story, it would have seemed rather bland compared with what Harry had told him earlier.

Still, he had nothing better to do with his time and so he read on. He spent a moment or two examining a report on the NHL’s six franchise expansion, doubling the league’s size for the upcoming season. It may have been something that stirred up great excitement amongst some, but after having Harry ramble on about it for the past couple of months, it did nothing but make him despair. If there was anything that kid loved more than stirring up mischief, it was hockey.

After a little more reading he found himself turning into his street and he folded up the newspaper, with his attention drifting elsewhere. Walking the length of the road and strolling casually onto the driveway of his house, hands buried in his pockets, the first thing that caught his gaze was the lights, shining brightly from behind the curtains. Meanwhile the remainder of the street was eerily quiet, enveloped in darkness.

Dalton’s initial thought on the light was that his mom was up late working again. It wasn’t uncommon for her to stay up so late, in recent times at least, refusing to turn in for the night until all her reports for the next day had been completed. But still, despite it being routine, it made Dalton pause by the front door for a second or two and let out a low, mournful sigh of sadness. All this work! It was killing her! It had changed her. No longer was she the positive, joyful soul she had once been, before the family like so many others had been torn apart by the cost of war. Sometimes, when things got really bad and lowdown, he almost came to forget what it looked like to see his mother smile.

To say the least, the strong sense of duty and concern he felt towards his mother didn’t last for long. It lasted until the very moment he entered through the door and was hit by the thick, musty smell of cigarette smoke, his emotions shifting to a feeling of anger and betrayal. His mom didn’t smoke and neither did he or Elijah. That fact alone was enough to make his heart sink, realising the truth behind what must be going on.

Dalton threw down the newspaper on the mat as he entered and padded lightly into the lounge, where his initial fears were proven to be correct. The first thing he saw was a pair of empty wine glasses discarded on the coffee table and then he turned to see his mother sat on the couch in the arms of a man, a man of whom he immediately turned to glower at.

He must have been nearing fifty, the man on the sofa, and he looked it. His straggly black hair was long and tangled, coated in a thick layer of grease, while his eyes, dark and merciless, looked over Dalton with great menace as he entered. There wasn’t any colour in his face. It wasn’t an ordinary white though; but a rather sickly one; a shade that made the body’s flesh crawl.

Just the sight of him was enough to repulse Dalton and if his mom wasn’t there to see it, he’d have punched his lights out there and then. Well he’d have given it his best shot at least, he was only twelve at the end of the day. She’d made a promise to him that it was all over and that they’d never have to see him again, but he’d obviously been deceived, as had his brother. They had been foolish to simply believe a bunch of empty, meaningless words. Was there really anybody in this world he could truly trust other than himself? If he couldn’t even trust his own mother, then he seriously doubted it.