Escape

Participants:

marjorie_icon.gif child-owain_icon.gif

Scene Title Escape
Synopsis Marjorie makes a decision to run from her brother, knowing well that he will probably start hunting her the moment that she does. A note is left before she and her son slip into the night.
Date November 05, 2010

Le Rivage


Back from the future, Marjorie is quick to go home. Home. It’s not really a home, anyway, not when it’s a place of danger. Her chest still aches from where Griffin hit her, called her a traitor, a liar, and a bitch. The physical and emotional and mental all mingle there, simply hurting.

”Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” Marjorie says to the babysitter, ushering her quickly out the door after paying her with a rather large tip. The door is locked, all four locks that it has, and Marjorie is hurrying into Owain’s bedroom. Her son’s bedroom.

She made this decision the moment Griffin hit her. She wouldn’t take it from a husband, so why should she take it from a brother? No, this is for the best. “Sweetheart, it’s mommy.” Owain sits up, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “Come on now. Get up and pack your backpack. Just the things you can’t live without. I’ll buy you all new clothes and toys when we get there.” Owain asks a few, fumbled questions, but Marjorie is quick to shush him as she goes into the next room and picks up the phone.

The voice on the other end, when it finally picks up, is scruffy and sleepy, a voice she’ll never hear from her son but he too will one day have. “Hi Daddy,” Marjorie says. And then she sits down at the dining room table and she cries. She tells her Daddy everything.

She tells him about seeing Griffin that day at school, and about finding a private detective, who in turn found Griffin. Griffin, who didn’t want to be in their lives. “I forced him, Daddy. I came out here and I forced him to be in our lives and that was such a stupid mistake.” Her father, on the other end, just listens.

Although the recent time-travel escapade takes some more explaining, she gets the gist of it across. How Griffin almost changed time. At first, her father says, that sounds great! But then Marjorie explains what could have been. Maybe Griffin manifests when he’s mad at Owain. Or maybe he’s still taken by the government, and Owain is taken too. Maybe a million things. At least this way, he’s safe.

”So what are you going to do?”

Some time later, Owain comes out of his bedroom, carrying a bag and shuffling sleepily. Marjorie has her own rolling suitcase packed, and she hurries her son along. “Mom, where are we going? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” None of these questions get answered as she hurries him outside, where a cab is already waiting. As the boy shuffles for the door, Marjorie turns in a flourish and leaves an envelope with a letter in it. Beside it, she leaves a red scarf. She thought about keeping it but…she doesn’t know what to believe anymore. “We’re just taking a little trip,” She promises. “Not too far. You can sleep on the way.” She glances once at the note and then closes the door.

Inside the envelope, lablled ‘Griffin,’ Inside, the handwriting is a neat, tight script:

Dear Griffin,
I’ve based all of my beliefs on the idea that we were a family that had been wronged, that you were an innocent man at the time of Cindy’s death, and what happened was not your fault. I’ve manifested - I know how it can be, how impossible to control it can seem. For 10 years I believed this, down to my very core. But they never came for me. They never came for Owain. And that was understandable. Perhaps we weren’t as special as you.

But then I made the mistake of finding you again. I wanted for you to be a part of Owain’s life, and at some point to be his father. You said you were in no situation to be a father, and yet at the same time you demanded it. You abandoned us, but you demanded it when we sought you out. I tried not to be selfish. I tried to understand, and for awhile I did. I know you won’t believe me, but I always had plans to tell Owain about this. But you couldn’t understand why I was so afraid to just turn him open to the world of our secrets. Part of it was selfish. I’m not ashamed to admit it. But part of it was explaining to a 10 year old boy why his mother was dead, and his father wasn’t around. I was protecting you from a child’s cruelty, as much as I was protecting him from the world. But I don’t want to do this anymore.

What happened the night Cindy died is no longer the black-and-white example of a martyred man I once thought it was. The Griffin I grew up with would not hit me. He would not intentionally try to hurt me. I don’t know if it was the ability that did this to you, or the past 10 years of your life. Maybe this violence was in you all along. I don’t know, I simply don’t. What I do know is that the last two family members you have been with, you hurt them. Not your life, not your situation or the people around you. You. I’m terrified to make Owain the third. What happens if he ever gets arrested for some petty child’s crime? Will you lash out then? What if he gets into a car crash, or takes drugs? What if he hates the woman that you love, and won’t accept her? Will that be enough to incite your rage?

I’ve based the last 10 years on the idea that the Government took away an innocent man. Maybe it’s not that simple. Maybe you needed to be taken away. Maybe there was a reason for it after all.

I don’t know if I’ll ever tell Owain about all of this. It’ll take time for me to figure it out. It seems as though it might be better to let our horrible family secrets die with our generation, but that isn’t necessarily fair to Cindy. But even if it’s not, Owain comes first. Not you, or what you want. Not even me, and what I want. He is going to have a healthy life, he’ll never know my kind of fear.

Please respect your initial decision to stay out of his life, the decision you made when you saw him in the playground and you turned away. It was the right decision. I was wrong to try and change it.

Marjorie


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