The burglar was my son.

by D

It can never be easy for anyone to bring up children. It is perhaps extra hard when you are doing it as a single parent. I don’t think that I did too bad a job of it, I’m saying this even though one of my sons has turned out bad, or shall we say less than perfect.

I’d always kept what I called emergency money at home. You never know when you might need cash in a hurry and I started the habit long before we all had the facility to take a card to a hole in the wall. I’m talking about a couple of hundred dollars here, money not to be touched unless it is unavoidable. I know, I know, not a super savvy idea to keep cash around the place, just asking to be burgled. But the money is always well hidden, and I do mean well hidden.

It was only me and my boys that knew about the emergency money, and all credit to them both, that money was never touched once by them when they were living at home.

To cut this tale down, eventually both B and J left to live their own lives and that is the way it should be. Not that I was happy to see them go. I kept this place on even though that now there is just me a smaller place would save some upkeep. Back of my mind, or maybe front of my mind, is the thought that I could snag me a woman to share life with. Tried that out once when the boys were here, didn’t work for too long.

J has always managed his life without major problems, had it tough, but has always worked mighty hard and got along. He is going to make me a grandfather soon. B will find trouble if trouble is to be found. Always broke, always asking to borrow, sometime paying back but mostly not.

Came home one day and ‘smelled’ something wrong as soon as I walked in the place. Things were missing, place was not ransacked, of course the emergency money had taken a walk. I had no insurance and there was no sign whatsoever of how the burglar got in. I did not call in the police.

I did not connect things up, the fact that only my sons knew where that emergency money was kept and that there was no busted locks or windows. Didn’t connect that B was always after cash. You don’t think like that do you? You don’t think that your own kids are going to burgle you.

Happened again, this time B was seen around the place. This time I did make the connection, I felt sick to my gut. I called him up on his cell phone, never mentioned the burglary, he didn’t say that he had been over this way. I waited and called him again, this time I asked him if he had been over. No he said, so I told him that he had been seen around here. Suddenly he remembered, he had called over but I was not in. He never calls over, and why would he at a time when I would be at work.

I have changed all the locks. That is my son, I should turn him in but that is my son who burgled his father and, for all I know, is an out and out burglar. I should turn him in.