She Goes with Her Father, 14

The next day, the wares from the trading trip were waiting to be sorted. Rampa took Ren with him to the great storage shed where he kept his wares. He explained to him where things were sorted. The boy knew these things well, he knew his fathers exact system. Ren had been present for so many sortings and helped his father so many times he could have done it alone himself with his eyes closed. Father had another purpose though. Tears continued to run down Ren's face silently whenever there was a lull in activity or conversation.

Rampa entered the topic gently, "You miss your mother Ren."

The boy nodded, he needed no further prompting, taking a deep breath he spilled his soul along with a fresh batch of tears as his father's feet.

"Oh Father, if only I had behaved better while you were away with Aruna," he gasped, "I could have made her life easier, but instead I was difficult and contrary." "I do not know why I behaved so badly father but I know she could have gotten her lungs much better if I had not made her so miserable." He rushed ahead, "It's really my fault that she stayed sick for so long, It's my fault that she died father. It's all my fault." With this admission stated he sat on the floor of the shed with his tear sullied face turned down sobbing uncontrolled, his hands hung useless at his sides, his back very rounded and his feet in a tangle before him. He was the picture of defeat. He was beaten inside where it mattered most by the weight of his own actions and his guilt.

Father took a seat in the only chair. He thought for a bit before replying, "Ren, you are a boy who has seen only twelve summers." In interjected a short pause, "You are not yet a man." Ren did not look up but his father knew he was listening. His sobbing had lessened since his father began to speak.

Rampa continued, "No one would expect you to behave as anything but a boy." "If you had been a man, we would have expected you to act as a man, but you were not a man."

Father got down to the meat of the matter he was a genius at reading and manipulating people. To his goodness he now used his talent to heal his son's heart. "This guilt you feel, this blame you place on your young shoulders Ren, it can destroy you if you allow it to."

Knowing that he had the child's heart on a hook he struck home with, "It is at this moment that you must act as a man."

He paused several beats for effect, " Now you must recognize that your behavior was that of a boy, you must allow that, as a boy, you could not have done differently." He held his son's eyes now.

"But with this realization you become a man. Hence forth, you will need to behave as a man would. You will shoulder the responsibility of a man and carry the responsibility of all of your actions."

Suddenly the starch was restored to his son, he half sighed and sobbed in one breath, his back had straightened up, his feet pulled in close to him in a tailor seat, his face, though somber and tear stained, was no longer as intensely sad. The transformation was complete. Rampa smiled inwardly and pulled his son to his feet. He bid him to go collect water for the household. He knew that this was the last task of the evening and his daughters would not have gotten to it yet. He followed him out of the storage shed telling him that this was to be his chore now. He would always go get water at the well at the end of the day to make sure that there was a supply for the following day. Ren went gladly, his heart lightened.

Rampa returned to his sorting. His pain was not relieved at all by the conversation with his son. He still mourned his wife's passing. He sobbed silently, alone.