“My mum died fifteen years ago and I don’t speak to my dad.”
“I never knew my dad. The biological one. I had a stepdad, but he’s dead as well.”
“What about your mum?”
“She’s in prison.”
Not what Patrick was expecting him to say, but he didn’t react. In his years as a journalist, he’d learned to stay neutral and give people space to tell their stories.
“She’s not a nice person. She wrote to me and said she was up for parole.”
“How long has she been away?”
“Ten years. She got fourteen and she’s had her parole turned down twice before. Hopefully, they’ll do it again.”
Fourteen years was a long stretch. Judges tended to be more lenient with women, so she must have done something terrible to get a sentence like that, unless she was a career criminal. The judge may have just been sick of seeing her in their courtroom. Patrick had seen that happen before.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“If that’s okay?”
He looked so unsure of himself. Patrick picked him up, and he squealed with delight. He seemed to enjoy being carried, and Patrick was happy to do it all the time if that’s what he wanted. He considered taking them to the bedroom, but that would only end one way. The sofa was a favourite spot, so Patrick got them comfortable, with Jason curled up on his lap. Patrick couldn’t see his eyes, but he knew Jason preferred that, and despite his bravado, he was incredibly shy about sharing his feelings.
“My mum had me when she was sixteen, and she got kicked out of home because she wouldn’t tell them who the father was. She later told me she got gang banged so didn’t know which one of them it was.”
Patrick pulled him closer.
“It was all consensual she said. I guess we’re alike in that way.”
Patrick prickled at Jason talking down about himself. That would need to change.
“I was three when Izzy came along. Mum didn’t know her dad either. She’d been turning tricks to get money, and he was a client. That was all she knew. Social services were in and out of our lives because we missed a lot of school, but she always did enough to keep us. When I was ten, she met Ian, and got pregnant with twins. She married him, and they had two girls, Destiny and Serenity. Yeah, I know, but she was going through some phase with crystals. It was just another way to rip people off.”
Patrick said nothing. He’d heard far worse names before. Most people wouldn’t think anything until you heard them together. He’d learnt the public could be very judgy about a lot of things, and kid’s names was a big one.
“Ian never liked me. Started calling me a queer when I was eleven. I still hadn’t worked it out myself by then. He had a temper and liked to take it out on me. Mum didn’t stop him, even said he might do me a favour and turn me into a real man.”
Patrick took a deep breath, keeping himself calm.
“He tried to pull a belt on Izzy once, so I went for him, and he flipped and threw me down the stairs. I ended up in hospital that time. Apparently I was knocked out, so they didn’t have a choice.”
Patrick was incensed with rage. It was lucky the man was dead, or he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself storming into the prison and finishing the man himself. Who the fuck does that to anyone? Let alone a child.
“Mum said I’d fallen down the stairs and the hospital believed her. They didn’t even call the police or social services. I was told if I said anything, Izzy and I would be split up and she’d end up in a home where she’d be sexually abused and it would all be my fault.”
Patrick was struggling to listen to this and not say anything, but he needed to give Jason his space to talk.
“I kept my mouth shut. Destiny and Serenity were lovely girls, and Ian and Mum favoured them. I didn’t mind, because at least he wasn’t hurting them and I only had to protect Izzy. I think I went to the hospital ten times before I was sixteen and still nobody reported them. On my birthday, he booted me out.”
“At sixteen?”
“Yeah. Said he didn’t want a queer in the house corrupting his kids.”
“What did you do?”
“Got a flat through the YMCA. I was working part time on a farm, so I asked for more hours. I was doing my A-levels, so it was a full-on couple of years. The plan was for me to defer university for a year. When Izzy was sixteen, she was going to leave as well and move to London with me. We had a plan and everything, but with me gone, he had to take his anger out on someone else.
“Izzy was a tomboy, so he started making comments about her being a lesbian, and he didn’t want that near his girls. He was happy for her to stay at mine, but Mum didn’t like it and kept dragging her home.”
