“Appeared like a bad penny!” bellowed William Thompson. “You can turn right back around!”
“Father, whats gotten into you?” Andrew replied, bewildered. “Twenty years Ive been gone, and this is my welcome?”
“If it were up to me, Id have met you with a belt!” William growled, gripping his waistband. “No matterwell set this straight now!”
“Easy there!” Andrew stepped back. “Im not a child anymoreI can fight back if I must!”
“And there it isyour true nature!” William snapped, still clutching the belt. “Bullying the weak, fleeing the strong, cheating the kind, and serving the wicked!”
“Whats got you so riled? What exactly am I accused of?” Andrew shrugged. “If I ever did wrong, twenty years is long enough for forgiveness!”
“Easy for you to say when youre the one at fault! Of course youd want to be forgiven! Well, Ive none for you!”
“What *have* I done? At school, I wondered why my own parents branded me a traitor and barred me from home! Not once did you answer my lettersand I wrote!”
“And you claim you dont know why?” William sneered.
Andrews confusion was plain, but before he could press further, the commotion drew his mother, Margaret Thompson.
“God save us!” she cried. “Look what the winds blown in! William, chase him off! Shame on him, showing his face now!”
Andrew stood frozen, stunned. Margaret added, “If I had the strength, Id thrash you with a poker! But I see fates marked you already!” She pointed to the bruise under his eye.
“Someone landed a good one!” William chuckled. “Id shake their hand!”
“Mother, Fatherhave you lost your minds?” Andrew exclaimed. “Twenty years gone, and this is my welcome?”
“Who put you up to this?” William demanded. “Well toss you out now and thank them later!”
“How should I know? I took the coach home! Then old Peter from next door recognized me, rushed to greet meand some lad clocked me, spat in my face, and bolted!”
“An unsung hero!” William smirked. “Ill ask Peter who did it.”
“Thats all you care about? That Ive been gone twenty years means nothing?”
“What use is a traitor here?” Margaret spat.
“Since when am I a traitor?”
“Since *this*!” shouted a third voice from the kitchen.
“And whos this brave soul?” Andrew glared.
A young man stepped forward.
“Thats the whelp who gave me this shiner!” Andrew pointed.
“Well done, lad!” William clapped the boys shoulder. “Seized the moment!”
“What *grandson*?!” Andrew recoiled.
“This one!” Margaret shielded the boy. “Your abandoned son!”
“Ive no son!” Andrew shot back. “Never had one! Id know if I did!”
“Then remember why you fled this village twenty years ago!” Williams voice cracked.
***
Andrew never called it fleeing. His departure was plannedjust moved up. There were reasons.
Hed a long journey ahead, clear across the country, to study. Leaving early let him settle and find work before term began. The stipend wouldnt cover much, and asking his parents for help shamed himthey could only send food, not money.
But there was another reason. Strange whispers had started in the village. Had he lingered two more weeks, he mightve been trapped. Suitors circled. *That* was why he left.
To the fair question*Why?*hed say:
“Ill tie my life to the sea! Leaving a wife behind while I sail? A poor bargain. Ill not grow horns!”
The sea found him by chance. After school, hed served in the navy. A year taught him land wasnt his place. Returning home, he carried papers to train as a ships engineer.
Before term began, he meant to sow his wild oats. Young men fresh from service need no descriptiontheir limits are oblivion or broken bones.
Andrew watched such lads strut home, proud as cocks, only to be yoked to wives, children, and toilreduced to plucked hens. He vowed never to share that fate.
Yet his restraint made him a prize for village girls. Prospects, plansand never caught in scandal.
Pressure mounted. Invitations, gifts, parents wheedled. Seeing no escape but early flight, he left.
*God helps those who help themselves.*
He arrived, found dock work, a dorm bed, enrolled, and wrote home: all well.
Their reply? Fury. No explanationsjust *traitor, coward*, every vile name paper could bear. No son of theirs. No home for him. *May the sea swallow you.*
Baffled, he wrote againno reply. Duty bound him to studies, not visits.
Years passed. He graduated, sailed, wrote homeno answers.
At forty, he *had* to know: what madness seized them twenty years prior?
The answer? No warmthjust surprises.
“You ask why I left? To escape *your* schemes! You bargained with half the village to shackle me!”
“We wanted you matched well! Instead, you got Natasha with child and fled!” Margaret hissed. “A *orphan*, no less!”
“When did she come to you?” Andrew demanded. “I wrote a month after leavingyou disowned me then!”
“Natasha said shed written you about the child,” William said. “You told her to be rid of it and vanish!”
“Did you *see* this letter?”
“We believed her!” Margaret snapped.
“Then lets settle ita blood test. If hes mine, nail me to the barn door!”
The test proved negative. Andrew handed it to his parents.
“Clear now? Natasha knew the child wasnt mine. Yet she came to *you*.”
“The shame isnt that you believed liesits that you *chose* to think your son a coward and traitor. Twenty years, no forgiveness. Now? Ive no need of it.”
“Goodbyethough you said yours long ago.”
Andrew left. Stan stayed, milking the old couple dry, swearing the test was wrong, his mother a saint.
Like mother, like son.
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