The Ghost of You

Chapter 23 - Cai's POV

Five Years Ago

"So, do you think she'll marry him" I ask my best friend as we walked towards my building block.

"My mum would drop everything for that man" he sighed, "He gives her everything my father couldn't".

The topic of conversation as he walked me home from school that day was Rio's mum's boyfriend, Keith. Keith was a lawyer his mother had met on a trip to London almost two years ago. Ever since them they had been involved in a long distance relationship which meant that Rio was home alone a lot more often than a kid our age should be. With his mother constantly flying out to London to see Keith, it meant that Rio's house was always the ideal place for us to hang out. While my mother wasn't strict, she was a lot more nosy and attentive than Rio's Mum, Valentina, was.

It wasn't that Valentina was a bad mother, she just didn't always act like a mother to a preteen. While my mother, despite her being a surgeon, was always there in the morning to make me breakfast and sped to school anytime they called her in. Rio saw my mother more than he saw his own. Even on his birthdays, the most she'd do was send him a card since she was never there to surprise him in the mornings.

However, things became more hopeful when she started dating Keith. Since she'd go to see him, Keith would also come to Spain to see her. Even though you would expect a mother to hide her relationship from her child out of fear her child wouldn't except it, the moment that Valentina started dating Keith, she told Rio about it. Two weeks after she told him, she introduced Keith to him. I was scared at first, Rio wasn't the type to warm up to people easily especially not his mother's boyfriend. However, Keith never gave Rio a reason to not like him. When Keith was around, he played the part of parent that Valentina could never do well.

He'd make sure Rio always had lunch for school, he'd take Rio to watch football games and even taught Rio the basics of a driving a car even though it wasn't the most suitable thing to teach a twelve year old. I saw a major shift in Rio's behaviour when Keith came into his life. He was a lot more cheerful and approachable - before the only person he cared to talk to was me. Before Keith he always got in trouble at school as he saw it as the only way to get his mother's attention. But, with Keith he didn't have to fight for her attention as he had Keith's. Keith was a good man.

"Well if they do get married it means you'll finally get a dad" I cheered. He smiled weakly as he head was planted down to the floor. The main thing that Rio and I had in common was that neither of us had a father. While I never knew anything about my father since it was a touchy subject for my mother, Rio knew everything about his.

He knew how his father cheated on his mother multiple times during their marriage, even when Valentina was pregnant with Rio. He knew that when Valentina asked for a divorce his father refused to give it her and threatened to leave her penniless if she ever tried to. He knew that when they finally did get divorced, it was only because one of the many mistress that his father had had fallen pregnant so his father had to marry her to avoid too much of a scandal. And finally, he knew that Rio wasn't the first time Valentina was pregnant, but, because of his father's cruelty, Rio was the only time Valentina actually gave birth to a healthy baby.

Rio always felt like the resentment his mother had towards his father was the main reason she kept herself away from him. He understood that and never tried to fight it. However, even though it did bother him, he refused to ever admit it.

"I'm gonna get a Dad, Tio" he mumbled, "I'm getting Keith".

"Keith's good though, right?".