MY FAMILY IS A FOREST

Art by Ilia Kate

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AWARDED AS JOINT “BEST IN GENRE”

To see the winning entry (as well as the other finalists and honourable mentions) click here

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MY FAMILY IS A FOREST

by Tom Hollow

Entry for the Globe Soup 7-Day Story Writing Challenge #8

Genre: Gangster. Theme: Family

The dinner table was always quiet after an execution, though not from disgust or disapproval; the silence was an act of respect that need not be clarified. My children do not shrink away from death. Like their mother, they have abandoned any debate on the grey tenets of morality and accepted the truth of their family, straightforward and without compromise. My family is a forest of mighty, unbending trees, able to withstand any force nature can deliver. I had once been proud of them for adopting my truths so completely, all as principled and stalwart as myself and their father. Now I resent them for how well they have heeded my teachings. Each of them now has the unwavering heart of the family beating within them, my heart, and the heart of my late husband. I wish one of them would lose their heart, just for a moment.

‘Marcus, eat,’ I tell my eldest son, at my right hand.

He has not yet touched his meal, gripping his knife as if to bend it with his thumb. The whites of his knuckles scream his unplaceable hostility, though he does not respond. His focused stare is burning a hole into his food. My other children—Sebastian, Anne, Lucy, Harvey—have all frozen, watching Marcus and his twitching knife. I want to tell him to heed that screaming voice inside him, compelling him to let his blade fly to my throat. To my dismay, he listens to his mother, as always. He has taken his cutlery to his meal instead, eating with vigour.

Marcus had requested so passionately to do the job himself, but I had told him he could not.

‘Mother, let me fix this; let me kill him,’ he beseeched, standing tall and proud. ‘He was a part of my crew; it was my product that was stolen, my men who died. The responsibility lies on my shoulders. You always taught us “there is no cure for betrayal”. Let me show you I understand. Let me prove myself.’

‘You have nothing to prove,’ I assured him and placed my love into a kiss on his cheek. ‘One day, it will be your burden, but not today. I am the head of this family, but I am also its hand. This remedy is mine alone to apply.’

There is no cure for betrayal; once trust is broken, the only remedy is removal. You cannot reform or re-educate a traitor any more than you could re-educate a cancerous growth. It is a lesson I have instilled within every child, and I have shown them its consequence whenever the family was betrayed. They line up and witness our remedy as I carry it out. The result of these lessons, as well as the many others I have lovingly handed down to them, has been a loyal brood. Marcus most of all, whose dedication to our family has been a shining absolute since he was a child.

My children joined me in the abandoned property, where the betrayer had been kept. His hands shivered against the rope that tied them behind his back, dripping blood from the abrasions to his wrists. His head was shrouded in a black cowl and his mouth was gagged. Even so, everyone could hear the whimpers from beneath the cloth. Pathetic, wordless mewls of innocence, repentance, forgiveness: whatever he thought might save his life. He of all people should have known better than to think his life could still be salvaged, knowing my family and our truth. He reeked of regret, soaking the cement beneath his knees. He had been so remarkably foolish to arrive here.

None in the room protested when I loaded my gun and kissed its barrel to his skull, save for his own cries as he felt his mortality spilling forth. I pulled the trigger, and the betrayal was remedied; yet a deep wound remains where only a scar should be.

I sit at the head of a table with eight seats, but only six filled. The setting to my left holds the memory of my husband. The setting across from me holds the memory of Frederick.

Frederick had always been so slow to catch on. Even when he was small enough for me to carry, the other children would single him out for his stupidity. Over the years, within him, it had crystallised a resentment towards the family. Frederick was always trying to prove himself apart from the rest, craving merit through personal achievement, when his personal achievements were laughable failures. Each of my lessons were always a mere suggestion to him, only truly learning through consequence, until he received a consequence he could not learn from. My starry-eyed Frederick, now a perished traitor, and an empty seat at my table.

Marcus was the only one who could temper his work ethic enough to help with the business, so Frederick worked under him, helping organise the shipments of our product. Last week, a shipment was intercepted, halted by a blockade. Once stopped, the five men were ambushed and slaughtered, and our goods were stolen. It was only yesterday we succeeded in tracking down and identifying the perpetrators: a group of dim-witted youths camped out in an abandoned building, too incompetent to have masterminded such a plot alone. After questioning, proof of Frederick’s guilt was unearthed: he had provided them with information on the shipment, as well as tampered with our crew’s weapons so they would misfire.

In truth, we knew it all already, minus the specificities. The morning after the ambush, Anne had caught him packing his belongings, plotting to escape with his stolen profits before his treachery was discovered. He had been escorted to the basement and was kept there until today, when he was taken to that abandoned building to join his accomplices in the dirt.

Now my forest is a tree fewer, by my own hand, and it is only in his absence that I realise how unnatural this family is. For I did not lose a withered tree, or a snivelling traitor. No, I lost my son: my starry-eyed Frederick who dreamed so wildly, so desperate to live beyond his fate that he would betray the ones he loved. I killed him, and all I gained was an empty seat at my table.

Where were his siblings? The motionless witnesses to his murder were no siblings of his. A sibling would have leapt to thwart me, taken my gun and turned it on me. How I wished one of them would have ended my life in that moment. But they could never, because I have planted a forest: a forest of trees so strong and unbending that no storm can sway it. I have taken away their ability to see with eyes unshaded by my great monolith of code and honour.

How far from human must one have strayed to be unable to decipher that no creed is worth the life of one you love? How could one watch their brother die, and not be severely unnatural? These creations of mine are not natural beings. For I realise now that this forest I have grown is not one of wood, but of metal. There is no living wood durable enough to withstand this gale, and yet my forest stands tall. These trees are steel, not trees at all, but imitations, planted in cold stone in lieu of soil.

Where was his mother? No mother could have pulled that trigger. Before today, I had always thought of Frederick as sick, wilting. I thought, ‘How else could it be that he is so incapable of heeding my wisdom?’ Now I can see, he couldn’t accept our family because he was real; he was human, unlike us. He was a struggling willow among a crowd of metal pylons, allowing him no light. No wonder he dreamed so greatly of breaking free. I knew he wished to escape, yet I stopped him; I squashed each attempt and scalded him, all to keep him here. I was so convinced he was a part of my forest that I could not allow him to escape it. I could have let him leave; I could have helped him. Instead, I drove him to treachery and then killed him for it.

I knew all of this as I loaded the gun; I knew it all before I had him taken to his execution site, but I still pulled the trigger. Despite every fibre of my being wanting to reach out and embrace my son, to tell him everything was going to be okay, to tell him I would protect him, to tell him he was free of me, I still became his headsman. Now, I am staring at his empty seat. Why did I kill him?

Marcus looks calmer now, as if he has forgotten his desire to open my throat and avenge his brother. I want to tell him to do it, to end the misery I have created. No, that would not be Marcus. That would be no child of mine at all. I realise now, I was wrong about Marcus. He is more loyal to our family than anyone else. He is a shining example of every lesson I have threaded into my family. He was not gripping his knife earlier with vengeance in his heart; he is only angry with himself that he could not have prevented Frederick’s treachery. Yes, that’s it: he only feels guilty for the harm that nearly fell upon the family. Even after his brother’s execution, he is thinking about the family, and not those within it. I have twisted him so severely that he can no longer realise his brother could have lived.

I think I know why I pulled that trigger. My family is a forest, and our roots are deep. They are jagged metal thorns that anchor us to the stone we are planted in. They can no easier relocate their values as a building can rip itself from the ground to move closer to the coast. I am no different to them. The forest is my family, but the forest is also me. Each lesson I have imparted to my children has been my life’s work. My only legacy is the code of honour I have instilled within them; betraying that code would mean forsaking my entire life. More than that, it would mean forsaking my children, for this legacy is who they are.

I was faced with a choice: betray my son or betray my purpose. I chose to betray Frederick, knowing full well in my heart that the only choice that could ever make sense was to do the opposite. I knew it was the choice I couldn’t make, yet I made it.

I have come to realise this family is a prison that even I cannot escape. I have planted roots so deep that I cannot uproot them. I am bound to my role in a way I cannot break away from, because roots exist that even I am unaware of.

I have finished my meal and not felt sick for a moment. My children have finished their meals and never questioned their torture; perhaps they have never even known it. Their children will grow from the same stone as us, and their children after that, while my Frederick rots in the dirt. This wretched family will continue, an afront to nature, until buildings can learn to walk to the sea.

My family is powerful and unbending. My family will be my grand legacy and my only shame. My family is a forest, and I fear it is strong enough to endure anything.

The End