This is Part 14 of What Happened to Trunkin. If you missed the beginning, start here:
Stuart’s father held up his hands. “Hold on—Sky? Otherworld? What are these glowing mushrooms? Who is this other person? I’m not following at all.”
Stuart looked at his mother. “This is going to take a lot of explaining.”
His father heard this and turned on his wife. “You know what he’s talking about?”
“Yes, Emrys. I know about all of it.”
“How? How do you know?”
“Because I talk to him!” she said, heat in her voice for the first time since they’d been found out. “I ask him questions! I take an interest in his life! You know—like a parent is supposed to.”
Stuart’s father reddened. “I take an interest! I ask questions!”
“You ask about his work, just as when he was a boy you asked about his studies. But our son is a whole lot more complicated than you give him credit for. You’ve always ignored what made him special, because you were only ever interested in having a carbon copy of yourself.”
“Now that’s not fair.” Stuart’s father had somehow found himself on the defensive. “I went to every one of his violin performances, and I enjoyed them. I helped him practice. I was there.”
“It was you who bought him that violin, Emrys. And you who pushed him to play it. You said it would make him well-rounded! But what of his real interests?”
“I rather liked the violin, actually.” Stuart held up a finger. His parents ignored him.
“What real interests?” his father demanded.
“Books! Fantasy stories! Singing, which he took up of his own volition! You had but to walk into his bedroom and look around to see where his heart was. Stuart is a creative and a free thinker, and you shoehorned him into an Emrys-shaped mold.”
“Pah! Fantasy stories?” Mr. Jenkins threw up his hands. “That was just a childish phase, no different than how other boys go out for sport. No good father expects his son to play in the Premier League. I taught him practical skills and a set of values to serve him in the real world, which is more than I can say for my father.” His finger hammered at his chest. “Everything I got, I had to earn. Everything I learnt, I learnt myself—”
“The real world,” Stuart’s mother spat. “The real world. Always the real world with you. But in case you haven’t noticed, our son doesn’t inhabit the real world. Not in any way you understand it.”
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
“Of course you don’t! Because you shut your eyes to it! Stuart has found his way into something wondrous. Something miraculous! And you walk around like a horse with blinders on because it doesn’t fit with your narrow definition of real. Well I’ve got news for you, Emrys Jenkins. It’s out there, whether you’re willing to see it or not!”
“I do not walk around with blinders.” Mr. Jenkins slapped the tabletop, and Stuart winced. “The two of you have willfully shut me out.”
“Is that right?” Mrs. Jenkins was on her feet now, advancing on her husband with hand outstretched, manicured finger pointing. “Is that what you really think?”
Stuart’s father gave a decisive nod. “That’s right!”
“You listen to me, Emrys Jenkins, and you listen well.” Mrs. Jenkins’ voice was low and quavering. She was angrier than Stuart could remember seeing her, and he was painfully glad that her ire was not directed at him.
“Nineteen years ago, we received a phone call from the coast guard claiming our teenage son had fallen off a ferry in the middle of the Irish Sea. And because you can’t ignore a call like that, we drove four hours to pick him up, sure they must have made some mistake. We even left a note, in case he came home while we were gone. Though we hadn’t seen him, we were sure it was some other boy. Not our Stuart. It couldn’t possibly be. Then we got there, and we found him bedraggled and half-drowned, wrapped in blankets with a glassy look in his eyes that I for one will never forget.
“In the days that followed, we learned that two of his friends, poor Meredith Cadwaladr and Tom Firth, had not been found. And we tried to piece together what happened. Do you remember that? What were they doing out there? Where were they going? How had they fallen off the ship? But Stuart was practically comatose. He hardly spoke. He didn’t eat. He wouldn’t tell us anything. Until, after the longest week of my life, he did.
“He told us about Cyril Lightfoot and his standing stones, and this—this remarkable adventure he and his friends had embarked upon. He told us about dear Henwen, and magic spells, and other worlds, and you…you wanted nothing to do with it! Stuart had just been through the most traumatic, transformative events of his life, shown us things beyond our wildest imaginings, and what was your reaction? To ship him off to bloody university! To hire him a therapist who he could no more tell the truth to than he could join the royal family! And then you skipped on back to your patients, whose ailments were clear and quantifiable and fit neatly with what you wanted to believe. You never spoke of it. Never wondered. And when I did try to talk to you—because I had no one to share it with either—you blew me off!
“Of course we kept it from you, Emrys! Because you showed us you wanted no part of it! It was clear from the moment you saw what had really happened that, for all of your talk of the real world, the truth had no place in yours. You were much happier believing such things couldn’t be. Admit it. It scared you. This new reality you had no clue what to do with. So you shut it out, stuck your fingers in your ears, and busied yourself with the bits of life you thought you understood!”
Her condemnation complete, Stuart’s mother flounced into her chair with a breathy exhalation and fell silent. His father sat stone-faced and cold, giving little indication as to what he thought about anything she’d said other than that he was unhappy about it.
Thanks for reading.
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