Good morning everyone. I hope you are ready for another scorching day. I suspect it is an indoor day for me today. But let’s start off the morning with a fresh new writing prompt. Timers set and off we go.
I like the idea of the one who was burned being asked to come back and save the family. I think it gives the potential for a lot of conflicting emotions to play with. Plus a lot of bad behavior to write about.
Thursday, July 9th: Forgiveness was a hard ask.
Forgiveness was a hard ask. He looked at them and tried. He really did. He attempted many times to put himself in their shoes, but each time failed miserably. His wife left him for his brother. They had an affair for years before he found out about it and once he learned of it, they divorced. As soon as the ink was dry on the divorce decree his ex-wife married his brother.
They went on to have three children together.
He learned of this from the cards his mother sent each Christmas when he once again failed to turn up at the familial gathering. The card was filled with recriminations for his absence, mostly because it left a gap in the annual family photo. That he was only sent the cards when he failed to turn up for the photo and no other event such as his birthday was remarked upon was not that much of a surprise.
Arabella Wilson put image above nearly everything else. The face that he was not in the family photos after his ex married his brother meant a visible schism might be detected by someone looking at the photos. That George was sleeping with his wife prior to her becoming his ex was glossed over. Jack learned early in life that anything George did that might be construed as wrong in other people was glossed over. It was excused away as high spirits most of the time. If something went really badly then it was an innocent prank that perhaps went a touch too far.
‘Or I am too sensitive,’ Jack thought.
George was the golden boy and could do no wrong. Even if what he did was actually wrong. ‘Especially not then,’ Jack thought. The divorce and marriage were seen as course corrections on everyone’s part. True love not being stopped and all that. The justification was thick as the affair went on for nearly five years prior to the divorce. In the beginning even his mother had a hard time with that. Time glossed over that fact and he was no more than a footnote in their love story.
For his own part, Jack left. He sold his shares in the family company severing all business ties as well as personal ones. He sold the properties in town, including the house and then he left. He hadn’t looked back. Only the annual recriminations disguised as a holiday card proved that they still knew where he was. Once he opened them wondering if anyone would offer an apology.
One never came and after learning of the birth of the third child, he stopped even opening the cards. He couldn’t bring himself to thrown them away, but he put them in the box unopened when they arrived and shoved the box back into the closet for another year.
Perhaps if he had opened them it wouldn’t have come as such a shock when his parents arrived on his doorstep.
He did well once he left, building up his own company and going his own direction. He was happy with his life. He dated occasionally and was at the moment developing something a little more serious with Angela. He wasn’t certain how he felt about developing something serious. He hadn’t planned on it, but it happened anyway.
When his parents turned up it seemed that George had not had quite the same level of success when left to go his own way.
Ten til Midnight 