Free Matilda Wren by When Ravens Fall

had witnessed it all the same.
    That was enough for Kenny to believe that somewhere deep inside of Sean was salvation; emancipation from whatever it was that obsessed him, was possible. Kenny truly believed that it was Rachel who had made him this way. He didn’t know how wrong he was. Sean looked at him for a long second and then walked out.
    He got in his car and slammed his fists down on the steering wheel. He cursed Kenny for making things complicated. He cursed him for putting thoughts in his head, which he definitely didn’t want to be there. He leant over and opened the glove box. Pulling out a small plastic tub, he looked around the street.
    Cutting two long thick lines, he snorted them down within seconds. He felt it slide down his throat and suppressed an urge to gag. Starting the engine, he pulled out into the road and drove away from the shop. He didn’t see that Kenny had reopened the blinds and was standing at the window watching the whole scene before him.

    * * *
    Maureen Fergus was a great hefty woman, with short dumpy legs; her shortness accentuating the ungainly bulkiness of her frame. The traditional floral print dress and starched beige apron that she wore was a long running family joke, her husband telling anyone that would listen that she had seven of them hanging in her wardrobe, one for each day of the week. Her popularity was as apparent as the sky is blue, her house being a free for all. Friends and neighbours knowing the door was always open.
    She was involved with the community activities on the modest Brentwood housing estate, as she was the key holder for the hall that sat at the back of St George’s church and she loved nothing more than to gather with her cronies and have a good gossip.
    To the outside world, she lived for her family, kept a nice home, neat garden and went to church on a Sunday. She had been faithful to her husband throughout her whole marriage and had bore him a son and two daughters. To Maureen, her life was not quite the picture she painted.
    The daughters were not the apples of her eye, as she made them out to be and her son, he troubled her, gave her nightmares sometimes. Her mother used to tell her that he was a bad apple.
    She often looked back, to when he was a baby, her first born, Sean, such a bonny wee lad with a thick mass of blonde hair and squirming arms and legs. He always seemed to be pushing her away, even from a day old he fought against her embrace.
    He refused point blank to be breast fed and whenever she picked him up, he would scream. It didn’t take very long for Maureen to start resenting him. She had wanted him for so long and had suffered a few miscarriages before he had arrived; a strong healthy boy.
    As he grew into a child he became more and more distant from her.
    She would watch him sometimes, playing with his toys.
    When he was five years old, he had received a pellet gun as a present from his father; an idea she had not agreed with.
    He would line all his action hero figures up against the wall and then he would shoot them all down.
    Maureen looked over her nice garden with her nice new garden furniture, all paid for courtesy of her son. Her Husband Mick thought he was bloody marvellous. She sniffed loudly. She knew the truth, even if he couldn’t see what was in front of his nose. What they had bred between them.
    Still, she comforted herself with knowing she had done right with her daughters. Well, better than she had with Sean. At least her daughters loved her. The eldest girl, Alice, was a good girl. She was smart, had done well at school and lived in London working as a legal secretary.
    She had a lawyer fiancé, owned her own house and was in the middle of planning the wedding of all weddings. This made Maureen happy, although she would like to see more of her daughter.

Something told her that Alice was ashamed of her family background and she didn’t blame her. They lived in a council house on a run down and half derelict council