The following is an edited version of a short story written in an academic setting. This work is declared to be part of the public domain, granting unrestricted usage in any shape or form to all individuals.
The night before was the last good night that Marcus Leroux had in a while.
He was at his friend Jane’s house, the only one who would even begin to remotely tell him about his past. They would talk for hours and hours on end about the little clues that she would have to give or simply laugh about how the hot chocolate she made was a degree hotter than Marcus liked it. She was the oldest one in town and knew the most about everything. That’s what made those conversations great.
“Marcus, honey, I think it’s too late for you to stay here. Go home.” Jane implored him before suddenly going into a coughing fit. “I… need to get ready.”
“Get ready? For what?” Marcus asked. “Are you not well?”
“Don’t worry about me, just go.” Jane smiled as she opened the door. “I’ll see you soon. Don’t you worry?”
While Marcus would’ve kept protesting, he knew it would have been fruitless. Plus, he did not want his friendship to sour. So he heeded her advice and left, not knowing what would happen next.
The sun was slowly rising the next day when James Aston heard the news. Just past dawn, he received a call and was shaken by the situation.
“I see, very well. I’ll let you know how he takes the news.” Mr. Aston hung up the phone before muttering to himself. “God help us all if that man takes a 180 lightly.”
“Hey Marcus, are you up?” Mr. Aston walked halfway up to the expansive attic. While most news wasn’t that big of a deal to him, this one was—not so much to him but to his adopted son, who had lived with him for the past 12 years and running.
“When am I not?” the small voice asked in the darkness. “I’m trying to figure something out. A faint buzzing sound could be heard in the faint distance.
Mr. Aston sighed. There wasn’t a minute, much less even a second when Marcus wasn’t trying to do anything. But at least he mentioned just one thing. It wasn’t a surprise to see him try to multitask and end up going way off-track of what he was supposed to be doing at any given moment.
“I have something to tell you.”
“What is it? Spit it out.” Marcus left his desk and was on the top of the stairs. He may not have been mentally tired, but his body definitely was.
“You know Jane?”
“Why wouldn’t I? She’s the one who gave me most of the info on my parents — not that it was a lot. Still something after all, really.”
“She’s gone.”
While Marcus was 16, he still kept himself in a pretty sheltered life. He initially assumed that being gone meant moving to another town.
“Well, that’s not good. Can you tell me where she went so I can see her today? I can catch the next bus ride out and-”
Mr. Aston stopped him halfway through and put a hand on his shoulder. “No, Marcus. She’s gone.”
“Oh.” Marcus didn’t physically react at first. But then, mentally, he did. His brain now went through his thoughts and emotions like lightning. How could he allow her to die without getting everything? How will I find out about my parents when no one is left now?
It started small. His hands were instinctively clenched to become fists. His posture, usually as straight as an arrow, became more curved and uneven. Then his eyes. They started to become watery, like a pool was beginning to form. What finally broke him was the sniffles. He leaped forward to give Mr. Aston a big hug in grief.
“Did… did she suffer?” Marcus stuttered to get the words out. He never wished a painful death on anyone. Even those that he believed caused his parents to go rogue. Death was never the way to go.
“She did not.”
“Was there anything… left for me?”
Mr. Aston didn’t want to answer that question initially. Even in grief, that boy will never stop looking for the answer. Not that perseverance was a bad thing, of course. But time had run its course.
“She said that everything she had about you or your parents was in that last dossier.”
Marcus looked up and then nodded. “There’s nothing more I could do then, not without her and her knowledge. You wouldn’t tell me anything. Or the Mrs., or…” His mind became a whirlwind of emotions as he tried to collect himself on what this new unfortunate incident would bring about to his project.
“Don’t you think it’s time that you… put an end to this?”
“No! Never! Marcus let go and dashed to the window before looking into the sunrise. He didn’t want to admit it. But maybe this was finally the time to give up his research. Perhaps this was a sign to do it.
For a few minutes, no words were spoken. Then Marcus ran back to Mr. Aston for a hug.—the first one he had given his adoptive father. Tears formed in his eyes as he remembered his life’s work, which he had spent hundreds of hours working on, was gone.
“What I will say…about your parents is that they never loved you enough like I, or Jane, ever did. And you know it.”
Marcus only made the hug tighter at that statement. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew that Mr. Aston was right. His family was right in front of him. In the form of the Astons, the coastal community where he had spent most of his life and his few friends at school.
“If you can’t completely let it go, at least try to focus on other things, just one little gizmo at a time.”
“But now what? My life has just been that. ”
Mr. Aston chuckled. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Marcus had been working away at the fruitless efforts to find out who his parents were, and he had never developed that many hobbies.
“How about you work on that light thing? Give it some unique purpose to make your old man’s life easier.” He smiled at that last thought. “Let us get what Edison made.”
“Sure…Dad.” Marcus departed from Mr. Aston’s embrace and went over to his desk to tinker with the device ever-so-slightly. Before slyly intertwining his fingers to create a faint light from the machine. “Did it! But now what? Can I go back to sulking now that I did what you asked?”
“Brighter! Better!” Mr. Aston exclaimed. “The whole world is at your fingertips; make the most of it!”
Marcus went back to work with his wires to improve his invention and make his father proud. His father willingly allowed him to figure out what needed to be said, that his home was his true family.
Smiling at what he did, Mr. Aston left the attic. Quietly shutting the door so Marcus could work in peace.
He went downstairs, picked up the receiver, and dialed the number he knew by heart.
“Hi, are they there? No? Well, leave a message for them on my behalf that the job is done. She won’t need to worry about him anymore. Yes, and to you as well.”
Oh, Marcus. It only took that to get you to move on.
