Chapter 3: A Storm Of Words

For weeks after she found out the truth about Ben, Aileen wallowed in self pity and self loathing. She had done wrong and she was paying for it. She kept up a brave front whenever she was with Colin or other people, but every night she cried herself to sleep. The month of November went by like a slow agonizing time of incarceration, she was imprisoned by pain. Thanksgiving eventually came and she and Colin were invited over to Patrick's for dinner. They accepted the offer and Aileen acted like everything was normal, but the holiday barely even registered with her. However, a few days later something happened that shook her out of her obsession over her own inner turmoil.

The first of December was on a Monday this year and it was the day school resumed after Thanksgiving break. Aileen had been home from work for about an hour and was preparing dinner. Colin wasn't home, but basketball season had started and he had practice on Mondays. He usually got home around four-thirty on days he had practice, however, it was now past six and Aileen was beginning to worry. When Colin finally came in through the front door he slammed it closed... hard. She could tell immediately that something was wrong. He had a pained expression on his face that made her wince just by looking at him.

"Honey, are you all right?" Aileen asked, even though she could tell something was clearly wrong.

Colin just stared at her for a moment, as if debating with himself whether to tell her anything or not, and then he spoke. "Two years! Two fucking years we been going out and she dumps me!" Colin shouted then stormed off to his room. He never used foul language in front of her, that he did so now was just another strong indication of how distressed he was.

Oh no! Aileen thought. No, not this. She rushed to Colin's room. She found her son sitting on his bed with his back up against the wall, one leg tucked under himself, and staring out into space.

"Colin? What happened?" Aileen asked as she sat down next to him.

"What happened?" Colin repeated in a neutral calm voice. "What happened was I walked into the cafeteria today at school and there I see Seth sitting next to Sheryl with his arm around her. I asked what he thought he was doing and he told me matter-of-factly that he was having lunch with his girlfriend

"I was ready to smack him upside the head for saying that but then I see Sheryl. She has this embarrassed look on her face, she looks at me and says she's sorry and she was going to tell me she was seeing Seth now. I just left. I've been wandering around the city for the rest of the day.

"So that's it. Two years with her down the drain. I thought we meant something to each other, but I guess it didn't mean as much to her as it did to me." Colin reported the entire series of events without showing any emotion, but Aileen could tell he was torn up inside.

"She told me she loved me." Colin said softly.

"Oh my dear, sweet, boy!" Aileen said and she took her son in her arms.

"Mom, please, I'm not going to let myself get upset over this more than I have to." Colin said in a shaky voice. "I'm not going to cry."

"Then let me cry for you." Aileen said with tears all ready flowing from her eyes. Her son was trying to be brave, but she knew (Oh, how she knew!) how he really felt. It hurt her just as bad, if not worse, to know what he was feeling. Colin didn't say anything else, but he didn't pull away, so Aileen just sat there holding her son and cried.

How could Sheryl do this? She had thought more highly of her than to hurt Colin like this. Of all the people Sheryl could have left him for, why Seth? The hairs raised on the back of her neck as she realized the answer to that question. Because Seth was the only one who could have taken her away. She had no doubt he was the main force behind the break up.

Seth was Patrick and Sarah's boy, Colin's cousin. They were the same age; Colin was just a couple months older. Seth was Patrick all over again, the Patrick Aileen remembered as a child, that is. Except maybe Seth was even meaner and more devious. When Aileen and Colin had moved in with Patrick and his family, it seemed wonderful at first. Colin loved his cousins, Seth, Morgan, and Kyle, and got along with them quite well. Being raised an only child Colin had to cope with a certain solitude, having the constant companionship of his cousins made him overjoyed.

Seth and Colin, being so close in age, also became the closest of friends. They liked to do a lot of the same things together, sports, video games, and getting into general mischief. However, there was also the sadistic side to Seth and a need to dominate. Seth was the oldest of his siblings and was used to being the one in charge, meaning it was his right to tease and torture his sister Morgan and his brother Kyle whenever he felt like it, much like Patrick had done with Aileen when they were kids. Colin, being who he was, presented a challenge to Seth's power.

It was subtle at first; Seth would try to persuade Colin what game to play, or what to watch on television. Colin was a fair player, and he knew this was Seth's territory, so he would most often acquiesce to Seth's wishes. But if Colin was right in the middle of playing a video game or watching a television program and Seth ordered him to stop, Colin would balk him. Seth was the more aggressive one and Colin more laidback, but when push came to shove, Colin would not back down when Seth became overbearing. When Seth tried to push Colin around, Colin pushed back, Seth soon learned that his cousin couldn't be intimidated like his brother or sister could. That Colin couldn't be forced by Seth to do what he wanted grated on him, it got under his skin and began to fester.

It exacerbated matters when Seth took out his frustration by being even crueler to Morgan and Kyle. He would tease them ruthlessly and when no adult was around they would naturally turn to Colin. Colin would protect his younger cousins and not stand for Seth's brutal teasing of them. This only infuriated Seth further, but soon he learned how to get back.

Seth became very adversarial with Colin. Whatever opinion Colin had, Seth's had to be the opposite. If Colin liked a particular movie, sports team, song, or whatever, Seth detested it. If Seth beat Colin at a sport or game, Colin would never hear the end of it, if Colin beat Seth, Seth would shrug it off with an attitude of insignificance. Colin and Seth were pretty evenly matched, and Colin welcomed the competition, but all the ridiculing started to wear Colin down. When Seth enlisted Morgan and Kyle in his campaign of taunting, it really began to hurt.

After all Colin had done for his little cousins in being their protector, he had thought he earned their loyalty, but it was not so. Seth was their brother and Colin was only a cousin. Whatever Seth said, Morgan and Kyle would agree with him, wherever Seth led, they would follow and there was nothing Colin could do to change that. So in effect it became three against one, three people ridiculing Colin at every turn. Colin had a pretty thick skin, and he could handle the name calling and opinion bashing for a time, but Seth was relentless. He would not give up until he broke Colin, and because Morgan and Kyle were under Seth's influence, they kept it up too.

You could insult Colin over and over, and the first ninety-nine times he would just shrug it off, but on the hundredth time you could see it would begin to sting. Because Colin had refused to bow down to Seth's will, Seth had in effect made Colin feel like an outsider. Colin was isolated again, but now it was far worse, because now every day he saw what he was missing out on. Seth's policy of isolation and derision started to take its toll on Colin.

When Aileen realized the animosity that was developing between Colin and Seth, and how Seth was turning the littler ones against Colin, she tried her best to curtail it. She tried talking to Patrick and Sarah about it, but she couldn't be too direct. It wasn't like she could just go to the people who were providing a roof over her head and say; "Hey, your kid is a sadistic bastard, could you tell him to back off?" They understood that their son was a bit of a bully, but Sarah was a kind hearted person, and through his love and devotion to her, Patrick had become that way too. He hadn't forgotten the way he used to be, but still, Seth was his boy and he couldn't accept how mean he could actually be. Whatever reprimands Seth received didn't deter him.

Aileen tried intervening between Colin and Seth, but she had to be careful not to overstep her bounds in admonishing Seth. For some reason Aileen felt Seth held some animosity towards her since even before she moved in with Patrick. He could hide it well, but every now and then she would turn around and catch the boy staring daggers at her. When she started living with Patrick and his family it seemed the boy was just waiting for her to scold him so he could play the "you're not my mother" card. He took any opportunity to indicate to his parents that she was prejudiced against him. It seemed like he was actually trying to build the tension between her and Patrick.

.

Aileen was desperate to keep Colin's spirit up, but she couldn't alienate her brother and sister-in-law to do that. She had to keep things amiable while they were providing shelter for her and her son. Whenever a conflict arose, she had to act impartial and chastise all the children equally, even when she knew who the primary instigator was. However, she always made sure to go to Colin in private and hug him and tell him how much she loved him and always would. She would comfort Colin whenever she saw he was feeling down and spend as much time with him as she could so he wouldn't feel lonely or ostracized. But she couldn't spend all her time with him, because she knew the most important thing was getting Colin away from Seth before his spirit was totally crushed. Aileen could see signs that Seth's approval was becoming important to her son. That's when Aileen got the job at the bank and once she was making enough money she and Colin moved to an apartment complex close by.

Aileen felt it would do the children some good to put a little distance between them, but not too much. Patrick and Sarah had helped her through a very hard time in her life and she would always be grateful and love them for that. They were the only family she had and she needed them, so did Colin. In time, she hoped, Colin and Seth would put their enmity behind them like she and Pat had. Whether Seth ever warmed up to her wasn't as important.

For a while it appeared as if Seth and Colin had made amends. They still saw each other regularly, they went to the same schools, and were part of the same circle of friends, but living apart from one another gave them a needed respite. They were no longer suffocating in each others presence. An air of competition remained between the two, at times it seemed like the only thing that mattered to either of them, they competed for everything, but eventually their competitive spirit appeared to become more genial than antagonistic. It looked as if they had become friends again.

But Seth had never really forgiven Colin. Aileen realized that now. All this time he must have harbored resentment towards Colin for challenging his dominance. Seeing how happy Colin was with Sheryl must have been too much for Seth to bear. Sheryl wasn't innocent in all this, Aileen knew that, but she also knew that Seth had grown into a handsome man and he had always been a persuasive individual. By threat or by charm, he usually got what he wanted. Seth had a fair chance of winning over just about any girl he wanted, but he sought after Sheryl. Whether or not Seth had actual feelings for Sheryl, Aileen didn't know, but either way, she was sure his prime motivation for stealing her from Colin was Colin had her, and he didn't.

Colin entered a deep depression for the next few weeks. Aileen strived to cheer him up, but it was to no avail. It was a chore getting him up in the mornings just to go to school. He limited his contact with Seth as much as possible. Aileen could see it hurt him too bad to see the person who had taken Sheryl away from him. No doubt Seth would taunt him whenever he could, that was just the he was. Colin quit the school's basketball team, of course he and Seth had both been on it.

He stopped working for Patrick, Seth didn't work at his father's restaurant, but he was there a lot. It was a shame, when Colin had turned eighteen Patrick had promoted him to server and he had loved the new job. The loss of income from his job was a blowback as well. Aileen hadn't had to give Colin an allowance since he had started working officially for Patrick at fourteen. She couldn't afford to give him one now, but since all Colin did was stay in his room most of the time, he didn't seem to have a need for money anyway.

The deep state of misery her son was in worried her terribly, worried her to a point where her own problems didn't even register with her any longer. All she cared about was relieving her son's sadness. She tried to snap him out of it. She made him his favorite meals for dinner, she kept company with him when he apathetically watched his television programs, she talked with him trying to spur his interest in any subject, but nothing worked.

It was a Friday night and Colin was moping in his room like he had been for most of the past few weeks. Christmas was next Thursday, less than a week away. She and Colin usually spent Christmas day with Patrick and his family, but the way Colin was now, having to see Seth on that day, who would undoubtedly rub things in, would be torture for him. She couldn't do that to him, so she didn't know what she was going to do for the holiday this year.

Aileen had always tried to make Christmas time special for her son. She always wanted to see her boy happy, but making sure he was happy on this day was especially important to her. In the home she grew up in, she never understood what was so special about Christmas. Her family went to church and everyone talked about it being the day their savior was born, a day for peace on Earth and good will toward men, a day of warmth, love, giving, and togetherness. People talked about having "Christmas Spirit" but Aileen didn't know what that was either.

Even though they went to mass on Christmas Eve, had a Christmas tree, most of the time even with a few presents underneath, and mom would cook a reasonably nice dinner, it all seemed superficial to Aileen. It was like they only did these things out of ritual. Underneath it all nothing was different. Dad still got drunk and was just as likely to beat her if she wasn't careful, Mom was just as impassive as ever, and back then, Patrick was just as mean. If the spirit of Christmas was supposed to come from within, she never saw any evidence of it affecting her family.

Then when she had Colin and Christmas came around, she was determined for his sake to understand the true meaning of the day. Every year she put up decorations, played the music, bought meager gifts with the little money she had managed to save, and told Colin all the stories she knew about Santa and the reindeer, and Jesus and the manger and everything. He absorbed it all up and loved it. Every year as Christmas approached Colin would get so excited. It didn't matter if he got a little or a lot, he enjoyed the entire experience. The idea of Christmas was a treat for him. Then on Christmas day, she would watch Colin open his presents and she would take delight in the joy he got at getting the gifts. The family would spend the entire day together, Aileen, Colin, Patrick, Sarah, their kids, and Fred as well, during the years she was with him. Aileen's attention always stayed focused on Colin though. If anyone was infused with the spirit of the season, it was Colin. It didn't matter if no one else had the spirit in them, he had it in him. Seeing the joy of Christmas in Colin made Aileen feel the joy as well. She finally understood the magic of Christmas.

But now it didn't look like he would have much joy this year. He was just hurting too much. Why did this have to happen so close to the Christmas? Aileen was pondering what to do about the holidays this year when someone knocked on the front door. That was strange. No one had beeped her on the intercom and she hadn't buzzed anyone in. Colin had a key to the building, but he also had one to the apartment, besides he was in his room. Patrick had keys to the building and apartment as well but that was only in case of an emergency. He always used the intercom to announce his presence when he came over.

Aileen went to the door, "Who is it?" she asked.

"Aileen?" said a deep, masculine voice from out in the hallway. The voice sounded a bit familiar.

"Yes?" she said.

"It's... it's Ben." Aileen was shocked. She couldn't believe it was him.

"Ben? What are you doing here?"