The Family Firm

Chapter 12

Frankie turned over the paper in her hands again and again. Already the fibres were beginning to grow weak because of the excessive wear. She'd been sitting by the phone for the past hour, maybe even longer, deciding whether or not to call the number her mum had given her. Donny's number.

Part of her wanted to know what he'd stopped by for. The other, much bigger part, wanted to push all thoughts of him out of her mind and not drudge up the past.

Donny was bad news, and he always had been. In fact that's what had initially attracted her to him in the first place. She had always liked a bit of the rough, the bad boys, and from the books she read she knew there were psychological reasons for that, probably something having to do with her waster of a father, or the fucked-up relationship with her brother. Regardless, she'd always been drawn to the boys that ended up hurting her the most.

Donny was no exception. Their marriage, all two-and-a-half years of it, had been miserable. The months leading up to it, not so much. It seemed that everything had gone downhill the moment she'd gotten pregnant. She supposed that was her own fault. It wasn't even to say Donny wasn't excited about the baby, because he had been. In fact, he'd stepped into his wellies and wanted to become a proper father, and was willing to trudge through the muck of it all, so to speak, in order to do so. But Frankie had been hesitant from the start, and not for any fault of Donny's own.

There was a deep paranoia that ran through her that Junior was Freddie's son, not Donny's. And maybe she wanted him to be, at times; she did name the boy after him, after all. Of course, Donny had something to say about that. It was just one of the countless things they fought over, and plenty of those revolved around Fred.

Who could blame her? Her entire world orbited around that man. She was arse over tit—no, more than that, she was obsessed with him. She had known him her entire life and couldn't imagine even a moment of it without him in it.

Part of that scared her, and it had frightened her right down to the ground when her mum had pointed out the obvious, that she was pregnant all those years ago. Even sometimes now, though Junior looked a lot like Donny, his mannerisms, the way he talked, hell even the way he carried himself, those were all Fred.

Maybe Donny had known something was wrong with them, even if he wasn't fully consciously aware of it. Maybe she just wanted him to know. She wanted the world to know at times, wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs just so she didn't have to carry the burden around like a ball and chain all her life. But she couldn't, wouldn't, do that to Junior. Even if he wasn't Fred's, the stigma would be too much to bear, and there was no way in heaven or hell she was going to bring shame to her own child like that. He deserved better than that.

He also deserved better than Donny, which was why she was at an impasse. He hadn't been a part of Junior's life, not really. But that wasn't to say he hadn't tried to be. That little fact made her feel even worse. He'd rung her every so often, even sent letters from time to time, but she'd burnt them all to shield her son from ever knowing about him.

Donny could be a bully at times, but then again so could her brother, but in reality he wasn't all that bad. She'd just always compared him to Fred, because Fred was her ultimatum, was her soul mate. Donny would always be just Donny, who was like a knock-off Fred, and her brother was the big name brand.

And Junior, her sweet young Junior, he never asked about the man, not since he was a child. Fred was a good enough father figure in his life and had made him want for nothing. He had really saved them all in a way, took care of the both of them his entire life, even during the five-stretch he'd spent in Brixton.

It was true that she saw only the good in Freddie; she ignored all the rest, saw him as a saint. Well, he was her brother, who had taken care of her, who would drive over at a moment's notice if she needed the help. Donny was just the first fella lucky enough to get her pregnant and the one man enough to be a father. He might have been a good dad, too, if only she would have let him.

An incredible amount of guilt weighed down on her heart, then. It wasn't fair to Junior, not really, to keep his father out of his life like this. But at the same time, they had all they needed with Fred. Why should she upset that?

The phone ringing startled her enough that she actually jumped, almost fell right out of her chair. Her heart was beating a tattoo into her ribcage from the shock, and she took a moment to breathe before hesitantly grabbing the headset from the receiver and pressing it to her ear.

It took her a moment to speak: '...Evanses.'

She expected Donny; for all the thought she'd been putting towards him the past few hours, maybe he'd read her mind. But she was shocked to hear a woman's voice on the other end of the line.

'Frankie Evans?' said the voice. She nodded even though the woman couldn't hear her, and furrowed her brows.

'Who's asking?'

The woman responded so quickly and so harshly that Frankie was taken aback. 'Tell him to stay away from her.'

Frankie was confused, and because of it her voice grew stern. 'What are you chatting about? Junior? Has he got himself a bird or summink? – Junior!'

'I ain't talking about your fucked-up kid,' said the woman lowly. 'I mean your brother. Tell him to stay away, because I know. And he knows what I know, so he knows that if he talks to her, I'll tell everyone.'

Frankie was confused. Freddie was being blackmailed? Not that it was unheard of, but she wanted to know why the bloody hell this bitch was coming to her about it. 'What do you know?'

The woman laughed, and that infuriated Franks. '...Just tell him what I told you. I'm only telling you as a courtesy to ya, a warning. It ain't like you ever done me any favours. So, for your own fucking good, you tell him what I said.'

She hung up, and Frankie's mouth hung agape as Junior appeared in the doorway.

'What did you need, Mum?' he asked, his expression growing grim when he saw the seriousness in his mother's face. '...Mum?'

'Ah...nothing,' she said airily, blinking a few times as she hung up the phone. She sucked on her bottom lip a moment and then said, 'Can you check on the chicken, babe? I've gotta make a few calls.'

'Sure,' he said, lightly smacking his palm against the door frame, looking at his mother with concern. But when he saw her digging in her purse for her pills, he swung around the corner into the kitchen, and his worry only grew.

Something was wrong with his mum, and he was going to find out what it was.