Love At Last

JACEK GOES MISSING

We got to the park and Jacek is looking all excited. Seeing the little one so happy filled me with so much joy. I noticed how he kept looking at various kids – his age – at the swing, rollercoaster, children boat, etc respectively. It was very obvious he yearned to go play with those folks.

“Want to go play?” I asked him and without even thinking he replied affirmatively: “yes!”

“What? This place is not looking so good for him to play in,” Lily complained.

“What do you mean, missy? Look around you…,” I gestured, “they’re all his mates running around here,” I completed. “What could the problem be?” I asked again.

“Can’t you see how full this place is? It’s swarming with people everywhere you turn. So please, it’s a no!” she objected firmly.

“Jacek?” I called out to the little man in my arms.

“Yes uncle,” he replied sweetly.

“Tell mummy you’re a big boy now and she shouldn’t worry about you getting missing in this place. Tell her you’d be just fine,” I egged him on.

“Mummy…I’m a big boy now…,” he repeated all I asked him to say in a hysteric manner. Seeing how cute the little one was, Lily was too chicken-hearted to say no again.

“Off you go buddy,” I let him down and watched him go over to the section for the ‘slide’ – which wasn’t very far from us – so keeping an eye on him was a given.

“He’s so cute,” I chuckled.

“Right?” Lily was all smiley.

“Now over to you miss, what happened back there?” I asked her causing her ‘all-smiley’ expression to diminish. I still insisted though.

She heaved a sigh and took the seat behind us without really saying anything to me. Of course I followed suit.

“Lily you know how much I hate to see you keep things from me and you always do that, why?” I asked gently.

“Can’t we let that issue down the drain already? I really do not want to speak about it any further,” she said with her head buried downwards while she swung her legs back and forth.

“I want to know what happened back there. You really can’t tell me?” I asked with a pleading tone.

“Just let it be, I already gave them a taste of their own medicine.”

“A taste of their…” “Hey!…” a voice called out as they – two ladies – approached us, interrupting our conversation.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Lily,” the other one chipped in.

“Are you talking to me?” I was confused because I’d never seen them in my entire life.

“Not really. We’re talking to the swine behind you,” the one in jean pants jeered.

“What? Swine? Did you just call Lily a swine? What for?” I asked almost at once as I stood up to face the annoying duo. “Lily say something. Who are these uncultured women?” I turned to Lily to ask.

Apparently, it turned out that the duo were her classmates – Charlotte and Evelyn – from high school. Judging from the way they acted towards Lily, it was obvious that they were bullies.

“Look Charl, Eve, please, please and please, here’s not the right place for you to display your madness. Not today please,” she pleaded.

“You’re the one who’s displaying madness right now, can’t you see?”

“Umm…,” I tried to cut in but I was completely cut off.

“Letting your bastard of a son play with kids who have fathers?” The one on striped tee shirt – Charlotte – asked and got me fuming.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

“Excuse you?!” I exclaimed. “Who or what gives you the right to insult her like that?” I barked.

“Oh she hasn’t told you? Or are you the kid’s father?” Evelyn jeered and two of them laughed.

“Is this how you go about shamelessly running your mouths?” Lily kept drawing my shirt stylishly telling me to give it up and let them be but I wasn’t ready to forgive their ill manners just like that.

“The one shameless here is she who decided to open her legs for a mere high school boyfriend!” Charlotte fired. “Exactly!” Evelyn concurred.

“Cayden it’s okay, let’s just go,” Lily pleaded.

I ignored Lily’s plea. What was so wrong about being a single mother that everyone seems to want to have a say in her life? “You must be insane to say such things about your fellow human. You both attended the same school, cut her some sl…,” I hadn’t even finished what I wanted to say when Lily held me by the hand and dragged me out of the argument.

“You really shouldn’t be engaging people like this,” she scolded when we walked away from the annoying duo.

“How do you expect me to stand there and not say anything in your defense?”

“These particular girls have taken it upon themselves to jeer at me at any given opportunity so talking to them is of no use please,” she added. “Fine,” I replied grudgingly.

“I really am in no mood to remain here. Let’s go get Jacek,” she said and walked ahead of me to where we had seen Jacek run off to.

“Wait up.” I followed suit.

“Jacek?” Lily called out as she didn’t catch sight of Jacek anywhere. “Jacek, come out now,” I added jokingly thinking it was a usual hide-and-seek he was up to again. Little did I know the little man was actually nowhere around that place.

“Jacek?…” “Jacek…,” I and Lily called out repeatedly as we searched for him. We increased the perimeter of our search and went beyond the slide section and made our way to other sections in the park still calling out his name repeatedly. We kept searching but couldn’t find him anywhere. Lily started to panic but I advised her to calm down and not freak out just yet.

“Jacek must be somewhere, let’s just search further,” I assured.

We took the search more seriously and before we knew it, we ransacked more than seventy percent of the whole park. Still unable to find the little one, I mmediately alerted the security that there was an issue on ground; by then Lily was already in serious tears.

“Jacek!… Jacek!!… Jacek!!!…” she kept wailing out attracting attention to us.