Post # 50 :)

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. A happy and healthy baby, he was born into a very privileged family, the kind that seem to lack nothing. They were a wealthy lot, not just in money, but in other things too, that mattered much more. They were kind and loving, looked out for their friends and were generally popular. The father and the mother of the little boy loved each other immensely, and why wouldn't they, since they had every reason to celebrate life as they knew it, every other day.
When their son was born, they were naturally overjoyed, and having a large family scattered across the globe, all of them came together to celebrate.

He was born a beautiful baby, and even at this age, everyone could tell he would grow up to be a handsome man. Friends and well-wishers never stopped arriving, as they envied the couple's good fortune, cooed at the baby and stared at him in wonderment.; his mother was over the moon and his father couldn't be prouder.

As he grew up, his parents never saw a day when their little son wasn't up to mischief. He caused chaos in the house, running up and down all day, disrupting the household work, breaking valuables and teasing the life out of any girl that came by his house. But yet nobody minded, because all they had to do was take one look at that adorable thing and all their anger would vanish.

As years passed by, he became an absolute charmer, as he greeted his mother's friends warmly and shook hands with his father's friends. His mother saw the mischievous glint in his eye and would just wait for the moment he would make her burst into laughter. Being an artist, she painted scores of paintings which she treasured deeply. She would display them proudly in the hall and gaze at them, content.

This family of three would go for vacations with friends, buy ridiculously expensive items and led a happy life. But by no means was this boy a brat. You see, born and brought up in the high society had taught the mother an important lesson- if you can't stay grounded, you can't stay at all.
She taught her son the most basic of values, and taught him to respect everything, from the food he ate to the people he met. She taught him to be sincere and polite, kind and humble. As he listened to his mother day after day, he turned out to be one of the most loyal, charming and genuine person one would ever have the good fortune to meet.
So even though his mischief did bring back a few complaints, his parents knew his heart was in the right place. A crack here and a joke there always did good to a person's soul, his mother used to say.
As he became a teenager, and grew taller and more handsome every day, he had a strong, independent mind of his own. He had heard and seen enough to attain a good judgement of what was right and what was wrong. He had grown up to be vary smart indeed. His mother secretly loved passing him the phone as girls giggled madly over the line and asked to speak to her son. She was very, very fond of him and they were one small happy family for a while.

Until one stormy, fateful evening and a terrible evening it was.

The mother, that evening, decided to drive to the local store to buy some groceries.
As her son reached home that evening, he was exhausted. His football coach had started rigorous training, and that boy was an exceptional player, best he had seen in a long time, he used to say.
So as he came home that evening and found his mother nowhere in sight, he just assumed that maybe she was with a friend or probably caught up somewhere. After some time, when he had taken a shower and cooled himself off, he tried calling her and found her unreachable.

He called his father, and he too, was equally puzzled. After hours of calling and checking up on the possible places where she could be, they finally approached the police.
The police, to be fair to them, carried out a thorough investigation. It was revealed that she had bought the groceries and then was never seen again. The car was left abandoned on the road. There were few passersby on the road because of the bad weather and there weren't much leads to follow.

The father used his contacts to make sure that people on the case worked to the best of their abilities. An extensive list of suspects was made and were interrogated thoroughly, but still nothing was found. It was as if she had vanished in thin air. The son got into a wild fight with some boys of another school who suggested obscene reasons explaining her mother's disappearance.

Seventeen days after that terrible evening, the mother's body was found outside her house, tossed carelessly at the edge. An autopsy of the body reported that she had been assaulted and murdered by being stabbed in back and chest and struck on the head.

Misery struck that family from then on. It was as if a cyclone had come and devastated everything they had ever known. You see, they were the perfect family across the street with the perfect house. No matter what, nothing this bad ever happened to families like these- they were the people to whom the local club first sent the invitation on special occasions, the people whose lawn smelt of freshly mown grass and house of potpourri. Murder of the mother didn't fit anywhere in the picture.

In the first initial days, the father and son were by each other's side. Friends and acquaintances mourned with them and rarely left them alone. Condolences were expressed and food and flowers arrived but the fact remained; neither of them had ever felt grief like this before and they didn't know how to deal with it.
As the weeks passed, they started to get on with their life but somehow, neither of them ever recovered from the trauma. A tragedy may bring out the best in people or the worst. For the father and the son, it brought out both.

They both worked harder than ever before, put on the bravest face possible while trying to help each other out, hoping that the killer be found. The father buried himself in work, hoping to fill the void caused by his wife's absence . Everything has a cause, he used to think. What had gone wrong here then? He couldn't for his life even begin to IMAGINE why anybody would even consider hurting her like it had been done. He completely involved himself in the investigation, worked ruthless hours but as the days passed, the case, like all others, began to lose momentum.

The son tried to gain some sense of normalcy in his life, as he became the 'dead woman's kid'. He avoided the pitying eyes, and was rash at any discussion that involved his mother. He busied himself in friends and school, sports and work, ignoring the sympathy.

Slowly and unknowingly, a distance crept between the father and the son. At first, they had been inseparable, supporting each other throughout, but the mother's absence started to gnaw at them. She had been like the glue of the family, the butter of the sandwich, keeping them together. They both stayed away from home as much as possible, avoiding each other. The father saw his wife's shadow and his incompetence in catching the killer in his son. This in turn made the son realize his father's lack of support and love at this time, making him bitter and resentful.

Time passed and the lives of the father and the son, which had always been interconnected in different ways soon took a separate turn. A time came when they would barely nod when they passed each other; they had learnt to live without each other.
The son, as he occupied himself and got on with his life, never saw one moment where he was truly content at the end of the day when he lay on the bed. He could never be the same former self he once was; it was like something inside his heart had died.

Until.

Until one beautiful, sunny, ordinary day when all that changed again.
You see, on that day, a little girl came along....