Caden

When the other kids asked Caden Tellis about his past, the first word that came to mind was ‘volatile’ followed closely by ‘violent’, both accompanied by an image: the man they called his father standing over him, red with rage, raising his fist to strike. The pain had long since subsided, but the impact, that crash of knuckle and bone into his body, that stayed. For the first years after he ran away just seeing a fist fight on the school grounds made him feel it again. Caden was known to be quiet, both in his old as well as his new school. Claremont Comprehensive was in the better part of town, up in the hills where the big houses with the two garages were, where there was grass and trees in the backyard and you could ride your bike in the streets without being run over. Until he ran away, Caden had only seen such houses on TV. But then he packed his backpack with crisps, a few bottles of something orange, a jumper, his favourite comic books and the picture of his mother, and slipped out the back while the man they said was his father was snoring in front of the TV.

What exactly triggered the impulse to run away, Caden could no longer say. He remembered thinking that it was his ninth birthday, and that the next year would be his tenth, which meant that he had lived ten years under the same roof with that violent drunk everyone said was his father. Maybe it was that. In any case, he packed his things and left. He had taken up what money he still had left from Aunt Vicky, the money that the man who said had sired him hadn’t taken from him, and with that Caden was able to get on a train and reach the biggest city he knew. He wanted to go to the top of the highest building and see how it was to be a bird. And he did see how it was, it was breathtaking. When he came back down the constable was waiting. He had gone missing for three days and Aunt Vicky had filed a search. While waiting for Aunt Vicky to pick him up a doctor asked him to sit on a bench in a quiet room and he was asked to remove his shirt. Caden still remembered the look on the doctor’s face, it had been calm at first and suddenly turned very serious. He touched the sore spots gently, asking Caden where it hurt, and if he felt any stinging. Caden answered and the doctor asked him to remain very still, he would be right back. An officer was called who looked as serious as the doctor and then the officer brought someone else in who took pictures of Caden and all the sore spots. Once that was done and more questions were asked and answered, Caden watched while the doctor bandaged him. He counted five bandages next to the wide strip around his chest.

Since it would take a day until Aunt Vicky arrived, Caden was taken to the doctor’s sister’s family, a Mrs Corrigan. They lived up in the hills in one of those big houses with the two garages and the large garden in the back. Mrs Corrigan did charity work, which meant she collected money for poor people. Mr Corrigan was an architect. They had two children, Matthew and Stephanie. Matthew was only a few months older than Caden, and Stephanie two years younger than both. They looked at him with wide eyes. Caden felt like an animal in a zoo. He had been once, no twice, with Aunt Vicky. Caden sat uncomfortably on a chair in the parlour, while Dr Martin explained ‘the circumstances’ to his sister. She said she would be glad to help, Caden could stay the night. So Caden stayed with the Corrigans, ate at their oval dinner table, tasting food he had never eaten before, eating with real forks and knives and drinking out of glasses made out of real glass, always aware of Matthew and Stephanie watching him.

Caden didn’t remember much more of that first dinner with the Corrigans. After dinner there was the bath Mrs Corrigan made him take, wincing herself every time she removed the bandages, shaking her head and murmuring, calling to Mr Corrigan (she called him Fred) so he could see ‘what had happened to the poor boy’. To Caden’s embarrassment Matthew and Stephanie came along and saw him half naked on the closed toilet, though they said nothing and Stephanie even gasped. Mr Corrigan moved them out of the bathroom, closed the door and knelt down next to Caden asking him if he was feeling any pain. Caden answered that after Dr Martin gave him two pills the stinging left. Mr and Mrs Corrigan exchanged a look, a look Caden would come to recognize in later years, and then Mr and Mrs Corrigan got to their feet. Mr Corrigan said something to Mrs Corrigan that Caden couldn’t hear. He took a bath then and Mrs Corrigan was nice enough to look away when he was naked, Caden hated it when Aunt Vicky would never leave the bathroom while he was in the tub.

After the bath he was given one of Matthew’s pyjamas and allowed to sleep in the guest-bedroom. The bed was enormous and the mattress heavenly, not to mention the covers and the pillows. Caden had never slept in such a bed. Mrs Corrigan brought him chocolate chip cookies, the American ones, and warm milk, even though he had already brushed his teeth. Then she asked him if he would like her to read a story. Since Mrs Corrigan had been so nice to him, though he was certain she had no stories he would like, he just shrugged which Mrs Corrigan took as a yes. She asked if he knew The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Caden nodded, they’d had one of the teachers read a few chapters to them in school. Did they get to the end? No, the Pevensies were still with the Beavers. So Mrs Corrigan left the room and brought back the book and read on from where Caden’s teacher had left off. He finished his milk and cookies while he listened, Mrs Corrigan could read as good as a teacher. Caden didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he had a very nice dream of sleeping in a cave and waking up at the North Pole where he helped the Christmas Elves pack up the presents, though the presents themselves were odd, enormous toffees, tires the size of houses or a very, very small cavalry and a settlement of Red Indians. They were all alive, and you had to keep them apart otherwise they kept on fighting.

The next day, Caden was brought back to the police and Dr Martin, where Aunt Vicky was already waiting arguing very loudly with a large black woman Caden later found out was Mrs Julian. She worked for The City. She was the one who took care that children in orphanages found parents, or if parents weren’t good parents, then the children got new ones. Caden came to like Mrs Julian, she didn’t make a big fuss about things. That day however, she was shouting with Aunt Vicky, though the shouting stopped the moment Aunt Vicky saw him. She knelt down and spread her arms and Caden, seeing everyone was watching, went and let her hug him, though she still smelled of too much perfume. She asked how he was doing and if he had had a nice stay and said he’d been a very naughty boy for running away like that, which made Mrs Julian huff, ‘From what I see, that boy had all the sense to run away,’ which made Aunt Vicky angry. After some more shouting, Mrs Julian asked Caden to come to her, which he did, Mrs Julian wasn’t someone you wanted to say no to. Mrs Julian lifted his shirt and showed Aunt Vicky the bandaged sore spots. Mrs Corrigan could have been a doctor for the way she dressed the spots after his bath.

Aunt Vicky didn’t really understand until Dr Martin gave her the pictures. She looked very shocked. She started crying. Someone gave her a tissue but it became worse. Mrs Julian looked satisfied. Then Mrs Julian found out that Aunt Vicky was in fact not his aunt but Caden’s mother’s best friend. Since Caden’s mother died she always took care to see after him. She knew Greg, the man who apparently was Caden’s father. She knew he drank too much and had a foul temper but this… ‘If Mary would see this,’ she kept on saying. Mary was Caden’s mother’s name. Then Aunt Vicky asked, ‘Darling, why didn’t you tell me?’ which made Mrs Julian angry again. ‘Tell you? Dear God, are you –’ Caden was sure she wanted to say something rude, but instead Mrs Julian said, ‘In a situation like this children don’t talk. And what should he have told you, Hi Aunt Vicky, Daddy tried to kill me today?’ Caden wondered how Mrs Julian knew. Once he only escaped after kicking him where it really hurt. He ran out into the street and didn’t come back until late at night, but by then the man they said was his father was sitting with someone in front of the TV drinking cans of beer.

Aunt Vicky only cried more. There were more arguments, more shouting, and while Caden waited, sitting on a chair facing the glass window in the door, he saw how Mrs Julian and Aunt Vicky went at each other like bulls, only female bulls, and Mrs Julian was winning. Finally, Mrs Julian came out and Aunt Vicky was sitting on a chair, crying again. There was some more talk Caden didn’t understand except for ‘temporary arrangement’ and that the Corrigans were mentioned as well. The long and short of it was that Caden was brought back to the Corrigans, and what started as a temporary arrangement turned into a final one. By the end of three months’ time, Caden was the Corrigan’s Foster Child. From what Caden heard the man everyone said was his father was arrested and then set free and then arrested again, and this time he had to stay in prison for some time, though not due to Caden. Apparently he had stolen something or hurt somebody, a grown-up this time. Caden didn’t listen carefully, nor did he want to know. It was enough that he would never have to see that man again.