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Father felt the small hand leave his and for a moment he sent a prayer to God for the strength he would need as Sid Carter ran as fast as he could toward something that caught his eye. “Sidney! Do not go where I can’t see you!” He called out to him, trying to be stern.
Instead he sounded just tired which he suspected was the reason the child turned around and grinned at him. “Of course Father! I won’t go far.”
He watched him run to the edge of the trees and surprisingly he did not go inside them. He turned, looking patiently back at him and he knew that they would not be getting to the church on time to make the bake sale.
Father also doubted that anyone would really mind if they were late and he found himself following after the boy whose grin widened and went into the trees.
“What did you find, my boy?” The priest asked him when he caught up to Sid who was on his knees looking at something.
He was hunched over a bird’s nest the most delicate eggs settled in the mess of twigs and soft vegetation. “Ah.”
“I think it got knocked down from the storm last night. D’ya thinks we can save them?” Sid asked, turning to look at him.
Father thought for a moment, a hand resting on his shoulder. “Do you think we can?”
The boy nodded enthusiastically and Father smiled.
“Then yes, I think we can.”
~@@~
“Sid!” The sight didn’t surprise him, but there was a pain in his chest that he had not been expecting. Almost as soon as the man had heard his voice, his hand holding up the gun started to shake.
“Put down the gun.” Soft, gentle, exactly what Sid needed to hear and Father knew that but a small (however small he liked to believe it was) part of him worried that it wouldn’t be enough.
Maybe Mrs. McCarthy was right and prison had changed him.
But Mrs. McCarthy hadn’t seen the Sid Carter who helped him put bird nests back and rescues rats from traps. “You’re not a killer.”
“They took a year of my life.” Sid whispered, more to Father than anyone else in the room.
His heart broke for the things that he had missed, Lady Felicia’s goodbye’s people coming and going from their lives. What was previously a constant was now ever changing and Sid most of all had been thrust back into a world that had changed without his knowledge even if it was just a year.
“And you have the rest of your life left.” He meant it too. There were still moments to be had, lives to live and Father could not see him ruin it.
“Sid. You are… The closest thing that I have ever had to a son.” And to lose him after he had already lost him for a year made Father’s heart break in a way he could not explain. “Please.” Don’t go where I can’t see you.
Sid dropped the gun, and in the end that was what mattered to Father. He found he didn’t even care that it was the right thing for God.
~@@~
“Father, please.” Sid’s voice was pleading, almost begging if he had the dignity to call it that.
Father touched his arm, leading him away from the girls. “I won’t be long, I assure you.”
There were many things he wanted to say, time that he thought he would have to tell him in not such a direct way. Father opened his mouth to voice them but found he didn’t have a voice anymore. Instead, interestingly enough, he felt the burning in his eyes.
“I won’t forget what you said. Back there at the house.” Sid started for him instead, not looking at him but Father could see that there was a red tint to his eyes as well. “About me being… Your son.”
The priest cleared his throat nodding.
Again, they descended into silence before Father found his voice. He took both of the man’s hands in his and squeezed them tightly. “I told you never to go where I can’t see you.” He said finally, a hitch in his voice.
Sid laughed, finally looking at him and there were tears in his eyes just as there were in his. “I know. An’ I always listened before but even the prodigal son had ta leave before he came back.”
Father Brown smiled, gave one of Sid’s hands a pat and watched him walk down the street and turn to follow the bend where he couldn’t see him anymore.