Heartless Beast

my lap. I sat staring numbly at the casket containing the body of the m

Ste

regation seemed to fade into the background, a droning sound I was dimly aware of. My eyes were fixed on the casket, a simple wooden one, in which the body of my bel

y to open his blue eyes and gaze at me in his gentle manner,

d, trying

o utterl

*

ver gotten

age when I met him and I had just turned nineteen. I know, it made my

make it legal and prove a point to the world. The difference in our ages was something I never thought of,

was totally different and Jack was not a

with Joe Seaton, my late partner’s best friend, to meet the pastor for a funeral

wife in the eyes of the Church. But in some part of my mind, I had also wanted my Jack to have a resp

r church, I was aware that the handful of people who had turned up at the chur

ck Jr. looked up at me, h

ople around me as I sat huddled into myself

his ex-wife, Andrea Miller-Smyt

*

fo

ds with Andrea Miller Smythe, Jack’s ex-wife. I had only a couple of friends here in the town. It was with some difficulty that I had r

ways be the one who had hi

r and a half after his wife had walked out on him. She had married his

was reviled by the t

n I had walked into the local baker’s. I remember I had been beaming, on my way to get us some b

e midst of caring, loving people. This sort of mindless hostility bordering on hatred frightened me. Seeing my distress, Jack had com

O

s thumb. He did that when he sensed that I was upset. And that had happened frequently i

to little Jack’s h

ime I had wandered inadvertently into the sma

*

world of love shared laughter and happiness. Where no one held grudges, where I had first discovered what it meant to love a man and shar

ahead, giving me some cash to spend. I had managed to travel to Mid-Western America, taking up small jobs along the way, driving the old Mini my Dad had gifted me. It had been a great adventure but I soon began to tire of it. Wh

I had met Jack. And that had