Jailbird

~Chapter 1~

"I have a son."

My mother and I stopped eating and stared at the man who came into our lives around five years ago. He'd been the only good father I had ever known. My biological one was worthless and pathetic, but continued to make himself known, just to be a jerk. So this man, this nice man across the table from me has been the only good father I've had since I was sixteen.

But just because you think you know someone, doesn't mean you really know someone.

When he said the words, I didn't understand -- then I thought I did. "You two are having a baby?" My head snapped towards my mother and she looked at me in shock and confusion.

Realizing she was going to be no help at all, I looked at David; my step-father, and waited for him to further explain. He had said tonight's dinner was going to be important, because he had something to tell us -- but I didn't expect for it to be something like this.

"No, Sienna. I mean, I already have a son. Just like when I met your mother and she told me she had a daughter. This is the same thing, except I neglected to tell her about my son." He sent a concerned look next to him and I looked to see my mother staring off into nothingness. She was almost in a daze. "Please, Dina. Say something. Anything." He murmured after a while of her saying nothing.

My mother gazed at me, then shocked us both. "The missing money. The random transactions. That's where it's been going."

"It's not what you think. I don't pay child support. It's complicated."

I chimed in. "Explain." I was grown and darnit, I deserved to know as much as my mother did.

David sighed heavily, but launched into a juicy story. "When me and my first wife got divorced, we were having problems with our son. We didn't know if it was because of the divorce process, but he was lashing out horribly. It started with our wines going missing, then our cash we had laying around and then to him sneaking out at night and not seeing him until the next day." He glanced at my mom, who was still staring at nothing. "Finally, our divorce went through and surprisingly, we fought over Zedlin. Me and his mother thought we could take better care of him than the other could. It took a few months to settle things out and in the end, I lost. His mom made some excuse that men would only frustrate each other and what Zedlin needed was a mother's love. Well, the judge fell for that. She won custody of him. I thought maybe he'd be neutral with whatever happened, but the custody battle seemed to mess him up more. He became irate and unstable due to whatever substances he was using before the divorce was final. I once again offered to take care of him when he was put on parole for possession, but my ex-wife refused and swore she had it all under control. Finally, about halfway through his junior year in high school, he got arrested for some heavy stuff and there was nothing we could do--"

"For what?" I asked, interrupting. This crap was just too good and juicy.

"For possession of marijuana, assault and battery and also... attempted murder."

Mom gasped. "Jesus Christ."

David yanked at the blonde hair on his forehead. "I know, it sounds bad and it was. I won't jump into details, but they took him in and he had a trial and they placed him in a juvenile detention center. Since he got charged at seventeen, that gave him a slap on the wrist in his case. They only gave him six years--"

"Six freaking years?! Holy crap, David!" I exclaimed.

"I know. I felt livid at my ex-wife more than I did at him. She couldn't even keep to her word and watch out for our delinquent son, but there was no point in getting angry, really. We could do nothing. There was evidence that he was the one who committed the crimes. We wished him luck and saw him off. Since my ex-wife won custody, she made the decisions and I wasn't put on his visiting list." David looked down at the table and I suddenly didn't feel as mad as I once did. I felt remorse for him.