Summary: Sometimes something quite small can bring sorrow and joy at the same time.

Rating: G, Word Count: 650

A Stain

 

In all probability it would have gone unnoticed. A stain so small that even a casual glance would not have attached much significance to it even had it been noticed. But it was, and immediately feelings were aroused, and memories unleashed.

Ben Cartwright felt his throat tighten involuntarily as he saw the small mark on the page of the book he was reading. It would have meant nothing to anyone else. Perhaps they would have wondered what it was, why it was there, who had caused it to be there, and then they would have turned the page over and forgotten.

But he could not forget. Now as he looked hard at the page he found the words merging into a thousand blurs, and he had to close his eyes.

“Pa?”

He had thought himself alone. Now he swallowed hard, dredged a smile from somewhere and turned to look at the boy standing in front of him. Such an earnest little boy. He reached out a hand and took the boy by the arm.

“What’s wrong, son? There’s nothing worrying you, is there?”

The child shook his head and quickly slipped his small body into the space between his father’s arm and body. He leaned against the big man, and smiled contentedly,

“Pa, I thought you were unhappy about something. I thought you looked sad.”

“Oh, did you?” Ben forced his smile to grow wider and he pulled the boy closer, so that the warmth of the child’s body could be felt through the thin night shirt he was wearing,

“Sometimes you do look sad, Pa.”

“Oh, but then everyone does, at times.” Ben said, with a touch of lightness to his voice. A lightness that he didn’t feel at heart, and the boy noticed and gave his father a long, quizzical look,

“Yes, I suppose so. Sometimes I’m sad, you know,” the child replied and sighed heavily as though to emphasize the point.

“I guess you are. Want to tell me about it?” Ben said quietly, holding the boy gently in his arms now.

“Well, sometimes I wish I had a mom of my very own, you know.” the dark brows knitted into a dark line upon the smooth brow, “When I see the other kids at school with their parents I do wish I had a mom of my very own, Pa. Sometimes they ask me why I haven’t got a mom, and I have to tell them that she went away. But, Pa, I wish she had not gone away, I wish she had stayed with us, or had taken me with her.”

Ben shivered. Oh God, what would he have done had his son died with his dear Elizabeth. And why now? Why had Adam to say all this now when he had found that stain on the page of his book? A small stain. A teardrop that had fallen upon the page of the book they had been reading only hours before she died. Sometimes, life could be cruel.

“Sometimes though,” the boy continued, unaware of his father’s misery, “I’m glad I didn’t go with momma, because then I would not have been with you, would I?”

“Sometimes, Adam, I think the very same thing. What would I do without my boy by my side, huh?”

Adam smiled, and turned quickly into his fathers embrace and entwined his arms around the man’s neck and held him close.

“I’m glad you’re my Pa. No one else has got a Pa like you… you’re the best Pa in all the world.”

Ben smiled and held the boy close. It went without saying that he thought his son the best boy in the world. He closed the book and put it aside. Sometimes, in life, one is made aware of just how much joy can be found, and without even looking too hard for it.

 

 

From the Brandsters:  This story was originally written and posted on BonanzaTrailRiders.  Brand is happy to offer this story a new home.