Rip - Becoming Whole

Resentment

Before they drove off, Mr Dunne opened the back door of the truck and without saying a word ordered his daughter to sit in the front seat. Chrissy rolled her eyes at him but complied, much to Rip's surprise. He knew she often disobeyed her father and generally did what she wanted. Obviously, there were limits to this, and Chrissy listened to her father sometimes. Rip figured they must have an understanding or their own secret language for he could not see why this was any different than his instructions earlier, when he had made Rip sit in the back and her in the front. She always had told him that they were close, but until now Rip had no idea what that meant.

"How do you know Paul," Rip asked his uncle as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"He's my brother, Rip," Mr Dutton simply replied.

"Huh," Rip went staring out of the window for a while before asking the next question.

"I thought you only had one brother," Rip said, reluctantly letting the jigsaw pieces fall in place in his head.

"That's right Rip," Mr Dutton replied not taking his eyes of the road for even a second and resisting the urge to look into the boy's curious eyes through the rear-view mirror. He was not going to spell it out for him but giving him the missing puzzle piece all the same.

"Fuck!" Rip gasped in shock after a while, "Paul's my granddad? I thought the bastard was dead," he added, which made Mr Dutton finally look into his rear-view mirror where his eyes found Rip glaring at him, as if it had been his fault that he had never met his grandfather before today.

Without evidence Rip had assumed his grandfather was dead. When his Nana was still alive, she often talked about him. They must have kept in touch for she always seemed to know where he was. 

"He just up and left," his mother had told him. 

"He'll be back. He's always been coming and going," his grandmother would say. 

She never talked bad about him, quite the opposite really. She had many anecdotes she shared about him, but whenever she did, his mother would get up and leave the room. Rip knew that when she sang her sad song, the one about being left just when she needed it most, she sang about her missing him. His mother was missing her but not him, when she continued to sing that song after her mother's death.

His grandmother obviously had been very fond of him. She never married another and his mother always said that every time he visited she was hoping he would stay, but he never did. Rip thought about the story Paul had told him about the bird and the seeds. He seemed so genuine, and it seemed to make perfect sense when he told it. It still made sense in relation to him and Chrissy. The story had given him hope. But when he thought about it in relation to his Nana and his mother, the analogy made him angry, furious even. He knew he had broken their hearts, over and over again, leaving them without protection, using this story to make himself feel better and ease his conscience. 

His mother had never mentioned him again after her own mother's death all those years ago and he never seemed to enquire about them. Did he even know they were dead? Did he know about him and Nicky? Did he know what his father had done and that he now was living with his brother? To assume he was dead was the only logical thing to do, and the assumption that he was dead had been the only thing that had stopped him from hating the man.

It'd been a long drive back to Jack's house, which seemed being made even longer by the fact that Rip didn't say another word for the entire journey despite his uncle's and Chrissy's numerous attempts to pull him out of his thoughts and into their conversations. He was blind to their efforts.

This didn't change either when it was just Rip and his uncle for the last leg of the journey back to the ranch.

Initially Mr Dutton had thought he could use their time alone in the car to get some answers of Rip about what had happened at the party. He had figured out the general gist. There had been plenty enough witnesses. It wasn't that important to pursue he decided, and Rip's mood told him to leave well enough alone. There was no talking to him when he was like that. There'd be plenty of time later on, he thought. There was no rush.