Thief by Greg Curtis Page A

James’ father, his dad had never raised his voice to him let alone his hand. He’d simply spoken - a punishment far worse. His voice had been like the sound of a bell tolling for the dead, and the look in his eyes told more of his pain than anything else. For Michael it was as though a knife had been plunged into his heart, and then twisted. He’d thought he was doing the right thing, but disaster had followed swiftly. In a single action he’d lost his father more permanently than if he’d shot him.
     
    He’d tried to explain, all that day and the next, and the next, he’d desperately tried to explain, but it hadn’t been enough. He’d compromised his father’s job, he’d lied and cheated, and he’d nearly been responsible for the disappearance of two boys who could have run into anything in the big city. Above all he’d lied to his family, by omission, by not coming to them with everything he knew at the beginning and by not confessing later. It was like talking to a stone cold brick wall. The man he loved with everything he had, the father he admired and wanted to grow up to be like, had become a statue.
     
    A week later he’d been packed off to boarding school in Montreal, where his Aunt Mabel had promised to look after him. Aunt Mabel was his mother’s eldest sister and a devoutly religious woman. She was known for speaking her mind in public, and was a strong believer in law and order. It was hoped she’d take his waywardness and mould him into a fine upstanding citizen. 
     
    He still remembered the last sight he’d ever seen of his family at the bus depot. His father had been grim, his face a grim mask of death, while his mother had cried like the end of the world was upon them. His little sister too had cried, though she was surely too young then to even know why she was crying. But at least then he’d hoped this would only be for a few months. His mother had promised him he could come home when he was truly sorry for what he’d done. He cried for the entire sixteen hours of that bus ride, wondering how he could ever make it up to them.
     
    Unfortunately for him, things were not as he’d been told. Were they ever?
     
    His very Christian Aunt Mabel had actually been an alcoholic, and worse still, an alcoholic with a bad temper and financial problems. She’d taken him out of the private school they’d sent him to on the first day, and with that and the monies his family gave her every month to send him there, managed to support her addiction. All the letters he’d sent back to his home begging for forgiveness, she’d kept back, not ever wanting him and more importantly, his money to leave her. All the reports she sent to his folks told of his evil ways and the need for the church in his life. A crock and a half. His very Christian Aunt Mabel hadn’t even been in a church in all the years he lived with her, though she’d preached endlessly.
     
    His life for the next few years had become a blur of beatings and emotional abuse, while his loving family became a distant fond memory he clung to for warmth. One day he’d hoped and prayed, they would come for him. But it wasn’t to be. School quickly became his refuge from home, and he’d started doing all the extra-curricular classes he could.
     
    One day never came.
     
    His Aunt was killed crossing the road when he was just eleven. Blind drunk she’d stepped in front of a lorry and been killed instantly. Had she suffered? He didn’t know, but he had. Unbelievably, in death she harmed him even more than in life.
     
    It had begun when he’d found all the letters he’d written to his family, neatly stacked in a shoebox in the bottom of her wardrobe. He’d hated her at that moment, as he’d never hated anyone else in his young life. How could she have done that to him? He’d spent all that time and effort begging for a reprieve, waiting for a rescue that never came, and she’d simply deprived him of all hope without him ever knowing.