Whistling, Jack swung the key-ring around from his pointer finger, enjoying the way it sailed lazily back and forth between the back of his hand and his palm, tethered by the finger. There were only three keys on his key-ring: one was to his Chevy, the second to his mother's house—a house she shared with him and his siblings—and the third which belonged to this shed.
Truthfully, this trek out to the woods to reach the shed he and his siblings had built secretly, away from the house and town, was a double-edged sword. Most days, he didn't mind the responsibility of it. It made him feel special, and the task within the shed gratified him in and of itself. Retribution, justice, a fair deal, they all had a way of making a person feel special. He'd learned that from his mother and he'd always be grateful for that lesson.
Sometimes, though, he wished he didn't have to come out here. The double-edged part of the task was that he was sometimes too tired to want to be bothered to come out here. Sure, it was important and his mother would be horrified to learn of this task and, even more so, the neglect of it (if he did, in fact, decide to neglect the task), but there were just days he wanted to come home from work and crawl in bed. Though he and his siblings didn't require much sleep, they did require some, and they all secretly worked double-time to make sure their mother never had to lift a finger. From working jobs to cooking to cleaning, they pampered their mother, perpetually grateful to her for birthing them, raising them, and allowing them to live with her in the small trailer they called home.
They all knew their mother had been urged, over and over, by many people, to simply abort them. To give them up. The pregnancy was an accident, quite possibly the result of an act that their mother hadn't consented to at all, yet, she was insistent. Something about getting pregnant turned her already-soft heart to absolute mush.
She would do anything for her kids.
And they, in turn, would do anything for her.
