Jury of Peers

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Authors: Troy L Brodsky
Tags: Fiction, thriller, Suspense, Retail
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pondering the possibility that perhaps Seth’s mom wasn’t a gold–digger at all.  Maybe she was a political deadfall, placed in his path in a very… purposeful way.
                  It hadn’t set well.  The ceremony was held on rocky eastern shores of Aruba as guests who had flown in the day before, and then driven to the location in 4x4 trucks over roads unfit for goats, held on to their fancy hats.  The mood was none too friendly by the time the spatting lovers finally took their vows… scowling.  Whit’s father had congratulated the couple with a smile and a shake of his head. 
                  It was probably a bad way to start.
    And it led to a predictable end; an end that was filed for even before some of the wedding guests had left the island.  The two had separated, Seth’s mom getting little more than Seth and some bittersweet memories of what might have been.  He’d always felt bad for her in this, though she had never complained.  All of his life she’d labored to provide for him, saved enough to put him through his first two years of courses at MIT, and made him feel like he was a kid who could do whatever he wanted in life.  But there were times, and holidays were chief among these, when they would sit together and talk over a bottle of wine and she would re–bare her soul regarding Whitaker.  Seth didn’t think she still loved him as much as she loved what might have been.  The carefree days of her youth had only just begun, and had done so in spectacular fashion, only to be dashed in one moment by the realization that she was pregnant.  It was his ass, but he did feel sorry for her.  It must have been tough to turn in Caribbean sunsets for diapers and animosity.
                  So Seth had parents who had been officially hooked for about sixteen hours.  He’d grown up with his mom, visited Whit exactly twice before the age of ten, and then only once since.  His dad wasn't a good one, but temper that with the paranoia that his growing success in the political world would somehow be blunted by the revelation that he had a son sired by a philly without papers, and he became even less eager to host Easter egg hunts on the front lawn.
                  Seth and his mom had never gone without.  She was a hard worker, but they lived beyond what they should have been able to scratch out on a single parent’s income.  He’d always suspected, and correctly it turned out, that Whitaker had kept them comfortable in life, though whether it was out of a wayward desire to make amends or a more pragmatic approach to keep everyone quiet, he didn’t know.  Probably a little of both.  Whit wasn’t a bad guy, he was just Whit.  And to be fair, he really believed that Seth’s mom had angled to use the pregnancy card, which was entirely plausible as well.  Maybe even likely.  They were human beings, they were flawed, and they were his parents.
                  So all three of them felt a little used, a little dirty, and more than a little uneasy around one another. 
    There were no Christmas cards.
                  The fact that Seth and his bride had met in much the same way might have thrown up red flags.  They didn’t take a poll.  They’d come face to face for the first time on a little dive boat off of the coast of South Africa.  They’d been paired off as partners by the dive master in a happy twist of fate, and struggled into wetsuits, lubing one another with a water based gel, giggling like the freshmen that they were.  The remainder of the sober divers on the spring break trip had succumb to the evils of seasickness, which left Seth and Emily alone to wile away an hour of bottom time while the dive master maintained order on his boat.  They swam in great, lazy circles under the hull, watching as the fish swarmed above, realizing only later that they were merely recycling the breakfasts of many a late night

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