Everything to live for

Don’t react. Walk away. Leave quietly. Think only for Amy.
Jason’s wife screams as she harries him out of the house.
He will never see Amy again. She will fight him in the courts.
Behind a window, Amy is crying silent tears with her hands over her ears.
Jason smiles and blows her a kiss. When he sees that she is smiling back, he salutes her. His wife shouts at Amy, who judders, her face filled with fear and confusion.
Jason walks away, praying for her protection.
After Jason had lost his job a year ago, he discovered depression and fell deep into its well. His wife refused to understand. When his income support was cut after six months, she asked him to leave.
Jason sleeps in a public toilet.
He cannot return to the toilet until midnight, when the warden locks him in for the night once the drunks have gone home.
On the high street, he sees a teenaged girl eating a pizza on the pavement.
She calls out to him. ‘Would you like to join me?’
He can see that she’s been crying and sits next to her.
He imagines that Amy might look like her when she has grown up.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
The girl likes the sound of his voice. ‘I was with some friends at the pub and they were all talking about their Dads..how wonderful they are, blahblahblah, and I..’ The girl is tipsy.
Taking a bite of pizza to stifle more tears, she coughs, throws down the slice and cries into her hands.
Jason would like to comfort her but knows he must be vigilant with his care. CCTV cameras are watching his every move.
The girl looks up at him. ‘You look just like my Dad,’ she says.
Jason smiles.
‘Do you mind if I tell you something?’ she asks. ‘I can’t tell my friends because they’ll think I’m a freak.’
Jason nods.
The girl sits up and looks into his eyes.
‘My Dad’s dead.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘My Mum hated him. She told me that he sexually abused me when I was really young and stopped him from seeing me. Then he killed himself.’
‘Did he abuse you?’
The girl’s head drops.
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘You need help. You need to know. When was the last time you talked to your Mum about this?’
‘She won’t talk about it. She’s remarried, says it’s too painful to think about and that I’ve got to grow up and get on with my life, but I’m thinking what life? I hate everything about my life.’
Jason fears for Amy, knowing that her mother is capable of a similarly elaborate lie.
He sees a policeman approaching.
‘I know a book that may help you. It’s called ‘The drama of being a child’. It’s about trauma and how to get in touch with the inner child. I’ll leave it at the library tomorrow at ten-thirty. Will you collect it if I leave it there for you?’
The girl looks for her father in his eyes and nods, just as the policeman stops in front of them.
‘Is this man troubling you, miss?’ asks the policeman, who knows where Jason sleeps.
‘Try hypnotherapy,’ says Jason, getting up to leave. ‘Just make sure you pick up the book tomorrow, OK? I’ll leave it at the front desk.’
The girl nods.
As Jason walks away, he can hear the girl screaming at the policeman. ‘Get lost and leave me alone, you fucking pervert!’
Jason turns around to see the policeman watching him.
The next day, he buys a copy of the book and leaves it at the library.
She doesn’t come to collect it.
A few months later, Jason sits in the library reading the local newspaper, hoping to see a picture of his little girl.
Instead, he notices the teenaged girl’s face on the front cover of the local newspaper. A bright young prospect with everything to live for. A fast-moving lorry. Social networking site blamed. A distraught mother.
For the next ten years, Jason sees nothing of Amy until, on her seventeenth birthday, he notices her on the high street with her mother. He is filled with joy.
When Amy spots him, she tightens her eyes and nudges her mother.
As Jason walks towards her, smiling, she screams. Her mother pulls her arm to walk away.
‘He’s not worth it,’ she insists, but it’s too late.
‘You raped me when I was a little girl, you fucking pervert!’ Amy screams.
Jason is dead within the hour.