Day 1236: 5 Minute Freewrite: Wednesday - Prompt: steal their secrets

in Freewriters3 years ago

“Now, stay calm and humble, Daddy Tom, stay calm and humble... .”

That was Thomas Stepforth Sr., talking to himself as he considered calling his four daughters that were still blowing up his phone Wednesday morning.

His soon-to-not-be-ex-wife, Mrs. Velma Stepforth, had already told him how her conference call with the girls had gone the night before. She had set them straight about their attempt to manipulate her by blowing up their phone, and they had become meek as lambs.

But see, they never had a quarrel with her … now the plan was to get the father they hated to lose his temper and take that back to their mother as evidence that she should “stay strong and not be taken in by him and go back.”

They were his daughters. Of course they were ruthless. They were his daughters. That was to be expected. Because he had not taken the time to know them and love them the way they needed and wanted, they had engaged in their natural inheritance toward him … if only he had known, but, all that was over with.

At times like this, Mr. Stepforth wished he could borrow – no, part of being humble was to be honest with one's self, and borrowing wouldn't do – he wished he could steal the secrets of men like his own son, Major Thomas Stepforth Jr. and even Major Ironwood Hamilton, serving as police captain in Tinyville, VA … Captain Hamilton he had hit it off very poorly with at first, but he admired the relationship both the majors had maintained with their families even while deployed.

Major Tom, as the father thought of his son, had even timed his retirement from the beginning … knowing his son would have greater need of him going through adolescence, he got out when that son was 14, at 21 years of service, and had come home.

Major Hamilton – Captain Hamilton of police in Tinyville's parlance – had 11 children to Major Tom's 6, and although Thomas Stepforth Sr. hated to admit it, the White major somehow had done, through years away, what Mr. Stepforth had not been able to do while much more at home: he knew his children and they knew him.

On top of that, the Hamiltons were the best adjusted White family to the reality of full Black humanity Mr. Stepforth had ever met in the South. That was an accomplishment to be admired in a White male family head from southern Virginia, especially in 2020 when so many seemed to be dedicated to taking themselves and their families backward to the Confederacy.

Both younger fathers had a calm patience and knowing about themselves and their children that allowed them to navigate concerns and conflict in a way that amazed the elder man.

Neither were billionaires, of course.

Yet they had something that the billionaire knew he would yet have to learn in his old age, for that could not be stolen or bought.

Maybe a bit of it could be borrowed, though, if Mr. Stepforth asked just right …

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Great writing as usual.

Thank you -- long time no see, friend!