Mothers and Sons

By Stan Wild

I look at him now, as I become conscious that my eyes have been on my screen, and I realise that he has lolled across my line of vision so as to meet my gaze. 

My son is in the nappy that he slept in, and so I wipe him down and pull on his pants and his Paw Patrol t-shirt and cap, and his Brazil football shorts. 

His mum will not be home tonight, and he knows that now and when I told him, there was sadness in his eyes, but he is becoming ever more pragmatic. 

He sat up straight, and the child chubbiness dropped from his face and there was a movement in his throat. 

“What day is the hospital playroom closed, Dad?”

“On the weekends, I’m afraid”

“I don’t mind Dad, so long as the playroom at the hostel is open. Will it be open Dad?”

“If they can take us”

“I think they’ll take us Dad”

We put on our helmets, and I positioned him at the back of my bike. Soon we were passing by the local pub, the church, and down the lane out of the village. 

We passed Joan’s Farm, then the allotments and next we were beyond Moon Hall. By the river, cows gathered beneath an oak tree, sheltering from the heat and chewing cud. 

The heat in the hospital could be intense too. Often, I had forgot shorts and spent the night sleepless, over-heated in jeans, so that the nurses did not see me in my pants. 

From time to time, I called back to my son. I would say: all ok champ? And he would say: I’m doing good, Dad. Are you doing good? Then we might say: this is the life.

Last night he kept saying the same things when we lay together, as light crept in at the blackout blinds: me waiting for him to fall to sleep. 

He would say: tell me how much you love me Dad, and I told him the first few times: all the way out the house, beyond the village, earth, and the solar system, and… etcetera. 

When his mother is back though, he takes to her all over again and he just gives me a barrage of shit and short shrift, and he transposes anything he had for me to her. 

It is hot, so he is struggling to sleep in the evening. He will need the potty, several times, and these pebbles actually do pop out like rabbit pellets, so it is not utterly contrived. 

Maybe he just needs to drink more, which will be the next thing: Dad, I’m just getting a drink. 

Yes, son. 

I fall asleep each time after the books, and then he wakes me with the first request, and I have been grumpy of late because I am drinking again. 

Cars go too fast on these roads, and one whizzes by, and a kid shouts out from the driver’s seat. The prick riled me at that speed and before I know it, we are hotly in pursuit. 

It is futile, and they go beyond the bend, and I stop to take my breath and my son, says: Dad and I say: yeah. 

He says: look. I lift my bowed head, heaving between breaths and coming toward us along the tracks is these four kids, and one makes like to fight me. 

His ears are asymmetrical and protruding. He is tanned with a chain about his neck, and I know him as a Macguire, so help me God; and my son is saying: 

fight him, Dad. 

So, we get to it: me with my helmet on and him, half my age with his naked torso. I go down and he boots me, and my helmet cracks off, and my back is grazed and shed of skin now. 

I get his leg and hook it from under him and then pound down on his shoulder, which is all sinewy and boulder-like. 

I went for his chin but got his shoulder, and so my wrist is wrecked. Maybe I knocked it from the socket since he is limp on one side when he comes at me now. 

We are grappling, but I cannot get a hold of him through his sweat, and I am anxious that my son is scared, but he says: hit him Dad, and Macguire sucker-punches me in my balls.

That is about when the police are passing, and my balls are broken. They get the Macguire kid in the back and call for a second car for me and my boy. They drop him at his Gran’s. 

I just see my Mum there at her doorway, and my son holding the officer’s hand looking at his Gran’s kind face, then alternately back at me in the back of the car. 

Stan Wild is a UK based writer. He works in the non-profit sector and is the father of two young sons. He will be submitting his first novel to agents in 2026.