Playground

Everyone was at a loss for words.

When Rock glanced discreetly at Tom and Molly, their frenzy shook him.

The crushing grip that interlocked their fingers reddened the flesh. As the waters of sadness gushed from their heads, toothy, drooling frowns stretched their faces most monstrously.

They were possessed by pain.

Rock could see the parents had reached a grim tipping point on their torturous trajectory. Upon arriving at such an odious finality, it wasn’t so much the emotional elements they displayed that puzzled him; it was the absence of them.

There was no rage.

There was no anger.

There was no outburst.

Only the profound pain of loss lingered; the ultimate theft of love, heart, and adoration.

They were broken.

“Fuck!” Greg grunted.

Rock could tell Greg was clearly upset at the loss of his son, but compared to Tom and Molly, it was more annoyance than agony.

“Took a couple with him at least,” Greg mumbled, trying to find the ‘bright side’ of Bobby’s demise.

Rock felt disgusted. Greg was like a living representation of everything evil. The opposite of what he saw in the Grimleys.

Tom and Molly didn’t view their children like pawns on a chessboard. Even when they’d first arrived, before the kids set foot in the playground, Tom displayed genuine and thorough concern for them. The money Geraldine offered was by no means as important as his family.

Rock wondered how he might’ve felt if Bobby had done to Donnie what he’d done to Sadie and Isaac. As the thought simmered in his head, Rock imagined the sensation inside him was somewhere in the realm of what the Grimleys were feeling.

But there was something else too.

The fury Tom and Molly lacked budded in Rock. The gory roses of revenge were begging to unfold in his spiritual garden. But as fast as the flowers were ready to bloom, Rock knew Geraldine would be just as quick to snip them at the stem.

As Rock watched the roundabout slow, the moans of Tom and Molly dug into his soul. While the wails fueled the wrath that left his hands shaking inside his pockets, the fear that Geraldine had impressed upon him still kept his heels pinned in place.