Friday Excerpt: Stewart

Today’s excerpt is from a new short story that will be published very soon. It is going to be available for free at Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, and paradevostories.blogspot.com

This is a story that goes along with the sequel to (W)hole, it is the story of what Stewart does after that novel.

Word Count: 687

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Even though Stewart told Jeff he had no intention of visiting his father, after school each weekday he found himself in the neighborhood. He took to parking across the street and just looking at the house. He hadn’t been inside since he was fourteen years old and his father had sent him to the east coast to live with his aunt. Considering how badly his father wanted to erase the past, Stewart was surprised he still living in the house where Sharon had died.

But he knew they were there. He saw the family coming and going. A perfect little unit without him. From afar he observed his two little step sisters who had grown so tall and beautiful that he would not have recognized them if he hadn’t seen them with his father.

Stewart didn’t know why he kept watching them. He didn’t know what he expected to do, but he didn’t plan to ever talk to them. When he got back to Jeff’s each late afternoon, his friend never asked where he had been.

One Wednesday Stewart watched as Ellen returned to the house alone. He suspected she had dropped the girls off for some activity. She parked her car and got out.

Ellen was utterly different from how he remembered her. She was smaller and more meek. Without his cloud of anger he could see the twitchy worry on her face, the way she never looked sure of herself. How could he have screamed at this poor woman? Regret circled his chest. The only thing he had noticed about her back then was that she was so very different from his mother.

Then Stewart realized she was looking back at him. She frowned and began to walk towards his car. Stewart fumbled with his key, hurrying to get away before she realized who he was. She was beside the car before he could pull away, though.

She stood just to the side of the driver’s door and frowned, looking in at him. He could practically see the gears turning in her head as she tried to work out why he looked familiar. Then her hand flew in front her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. She walked closer and he rolled down the window.

“Stewart?” she whispered.

“Hey, Ellen,” he said.

There was fear in the creases around her eyes. She was thinking about the same moment he was, he was sure of it. In the stairwell of the house behind her, late at night, the only light from the open door of a bathroom on the seond floor, her thin body pressed against the wall, and his hands holding her there.

“It’s been so long,” she said. She seemed to be having trouble figuring out what else to say. Though Stewart had seen his father most Christmases, he hadn’t seen Ellen in twelve years.

“You should come in,” she continued.

“It’s not that simple,” Stewart said, glancing behind her to the series of steps up to the front door of the house.

“It is. Really, Stewart. The past is the past. I’ve so wanted the chance to talk to you again.”

“No, I mean I really can’t.”

“What do you mean? We haven’t seen you, I mean I haven’t seen you in years, and here you are. Don’t you want to talk?”

“I can’t come in because of the stairs on the house.”

She tilted her head and frowned. He realized that she couldn’t see the logo on his license plate and her gaze hadn’t shifted from him long enough to take in the jumble of wheels and tubes on the seat beside him. She had no idea that he was paralyzed. “Wait a minute,” he said. “My dad never told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Well, isn’t that just like him?”

“I don’t understand.”

Ellen moved back as Stewart opened the car door and pushed his thin legs out onto the ground. The surprise movement caused one of them to start shaking. “I can’t walk,” he said.