Unexpected: Day 12

Word Count: 84,115

Summary of Events:

In the morning Meinwen discovered the boat she was in was horribly dated and not very clean, as well as reeking of stale tobacco smoke, which she wanted to dispel by opening the window, but the window resisted her efforts. Hilton elected to go with the young woman who'd given him the ride to her hotel in a bid to use her and her family as cover to prevent him from being identified, and met the family over breakfast, where he fibbed to them that he'd been meaning to leave for Barbados, but missed his flight because he'd been trying to find his mobile charging cord, and was now so taken with the young woman — whose name he learned was Kerri — that he wasn't sure he wanted to leave, prompting the family to welcome him to stay with them warmly. With nothing else to do while locked in her cabin, Meinwen checked the news on her mobile, finding a lengthy feature article trying to explain why Hilton supposedly had become a kidnaper, which confirmed to Meinwen that Hilton's father was deceased, as well as prompting her to cry in sympathy for him at the comments his mother was making about him, remembering their discussion back in Dublin the morning after they'd been to Belfast . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Hilton had been on the cusp of tears, and had apologised to her ‘for everything’, which had puzzled her. Now, however, Meinwen was sure she knew what he meant, and to a greater measure why he’d been so convinced his family wouldn’t believe him innocent.

According to his mother — at the very least — his father had been mentally unstable, and Hilton had clearly feared that, as a result, he was going to be labelled as comparably unstable by this whole situation, and he now had been by his mother, of all people.

Meinwen shut off her mobile screen to save its power and put her face in her hands to weep for Hilton. She had no idea what the generic term of ‘mental instability’ was referring to in the case of Hilton’s father, but she wept to think that Hilton was being accused of having mental instability without any concrete proof.

What was worse was the thought that his mother was the one accusing him, without proof, of being unstable, especially considering that the wording of the sentence suggested she’d believed it for some time, even if others hadn’t believed it previously.

How horrid a mother she was! Meinwen couldn’t imagine any of the mums she knew — from Grandmum and her aunts, to one of her friends from the stables who’d just given birth to her first baby in February — who would possibly be so horrid.

None of the mums she knew would necessarily deny if their child had any sort of problem or handicap, but they wouldn’t be so loveless as to suggest that they’d not gone to a doctor for confirmation, and for treatment help.

Meinwen dried her eyes and woke her mobile up to look at the ensuing paragraphs and see if there was any suggestion that Hilton had been officially diagnosed with anything — although part of her had to admit that she felt such things would probably have already been disclosed if they were known — but found nothing suggesting that such a thing had happened.

Surely if she had suspected Hilton had mental health struggles she should’ve taken him to a doctor for an examination to diagnose what he had and help him get treatment for it, instead of leaving him to languish and suffer — if it were true that he had mental instabilities at all.

She also had to admit that the fact that it was Hilton’s stepfather who had shared belief that Hilton was still grieving the death of his father, and even suggested that Hilton didn’t believe anyone else sympathised with his grief, suggested even more horridness on the account of Hilton’s mother.

If Hilton truly didn’t believe anyone else sympathised with his grief at the death of his father — which had presumably happened at least ten years ago if it had happened in his boyhood — then that had to mean that Hilton’s parents had been estranged to some extent, and that his mother had viewed the death of her purportedly mentally unstable husband as a welcome reprieve, and had not felt the same loss as her son at his passing.