“It’s Mom... She’s really sick! I mean, its really bad!” Steve had no time to think about his father’s tone. No time to reflect that his father considered him and his mom a bother.
“Hmm. Yes. I understand. Just sit tight and I’ll be over soon.” And he hung up.
Steve was left holding the receiver, unsure what to do next. He stayed near the phone for a few minutes, waiting for a call back. Then he spent another ten minutes at the front door, waiting for his father. But nobody showed up.
Maybe he has gone to get a doctor.
He crept back upstairs to see his mom. She wanted some water, so he fetched her a glass. She hardly had the energy to drink and spilled most of it. Steve stayed with her, waiting for his father to arrive.
It wasn’t until several hours later that he heard the door to their hut open. Steve jumped up from his mom’s bed, startling her.
“It’s Dad. He’s here!” he said as he ran to the stairs.
He was in for a surprise, and disappointment, when he got down those stairs.
Three soldiers had entered the hut. One of them had the initials “M.P.” stenciled in white on a black armband.
“Hey, kid,” he said when he saw the boy, and swallowed quickly before continuing, “Where is your mother?”
Steve meekly pointed up the stairs.
“And is she still... awake?”
Steve nodded.
“Good.” He signaled to his two men and they approached the stairs.
Five minutes later, his mom had been carried away. Steve received a curt shake of the head in answer when he asked if he could go with her. They also didn’t answer when he asked where she was being taken. They said that they had no idea who his father was.
And that was the last time he saw his mother. Passed down the stairs like a sack of potatoes. The only thing visible outside of the blanket she was wrapped in was her pale forehead and her brown hair, the gray roots starting to show.
Steve watched them load her into the back of a vehicle and drive off without another word. He turned and walked back into the hut in a daze.
It wasn’t until much later that his dad showed up. Steve had been sitting in their makeshift living room for several hours.
“Oh.” His dad said as he saw Steve sitting in the room. “What are you doing here, sitting in the dark?” The question was rhetorical. He flicked a switch and bathed the room in artificial light.
The boy and his father faced each other across the room.
“Where were you?”
His dad frowned momentarily. “Well, I’ve got a job to do. We’ve got thousands of people in this ca—"
“WHERE WERE YOU,” Steve screamed at his dad. “WHEN THEY TOOK MOM AWAY?”
Steve’s dad was stunned at his son’s vehemence. He stood by the wall, his mouth opening and closing as if he were a fish out of water.
He didn’t speak until Steve took a step towards him. “I did what I could! I called a doctor contact of mine and begged him to go see your mother!”
Your mother. Not "my wife.” Steve caught the slip.
“There was no doctor. Only some army guys. They took ‘my mother’ away.” Steve stepped around the small couch and walked up to his father.
Misinterpreting his son’s emotion, he stepped up and attempted to wrap his arms around Steve in a hug. Steve shook off his father’s arms and shoved him back viciously. His father hit the wall behind him with a loud bang but managed to catch himself.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled as he pushed off from the wall. He struck his son across the face before Steve could raise his arm to protect himself. Steve collapsed at his father’s feet and started to cry.
“You have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under! There are thousands of people depending on me. Thousands! You don’t know...” The man stepped back from his son as he realized what he had done. He stared at his weeping son with wide eyes until he hit the wall. “You don’t know, what’s really happening out there.”
“I hate you!” Steve managed to croak between sobs. He wasn’t just crying from the pain of getting hit. There was also the pain of knowing that he was all alone.
His dad took a step sideways, toward the door. “All I needed was for your mother and you to support me. That’s all I ever asked. But all she did was ridicule me and undermine me. She turned you against me too. Kept me from being your dad.”
Steve got on to his knees as his dad took another step towards the door. He looked at the door before meeting his father’s eyes. He knew in that moment that his dad was about to run out on him.
“You’re not my dad,” Steve said with unnerving calmness. His father’s response was to open the door and walk out.
“SHIT. THAT WAS HARSH.”
Q was the first to comment when Steve paused his story.
“For you, I mean,” he continued. “Your dad is a real piece of work.”
Steve looked at Q with an emotionless stare. He sensed a slight pressure on his back and realized that Sarah had placed her hand there sometime during his story. He looked over at her with a small smile of gratitude.
“Sorry,” she whispered, then returned his smile sadly. The rest of the group sat in silence. Steve faced the group and continued.
He told them of meeting up with Alex and Mark that next morning, and of their trip into quadrant four of the safe zone. He was stoic when he told them of Mark’s treatment of Alex, and the discovery at the warehouse.
“Those zombies were going to catch Mark for sure. One of them looked right at me... I felt like he was going to get me too.” He looked up and met Q’s eyes. “I pissed myself...”
To his credit, Q merely nodded.
“I ran. I ran as fast
