Chapter 1 Part 2

Chapter 1, Part two

Robert was born in the shadow of his big brother’s fame. Adam was 13 when his brother joined the family and had gone from walking on water to healing the sick. A long line of people would stand outside the house while Adam was exposed to the sickest and poorest people in society, spending hours a day being asked to touch the most disgusting of sores and deformities. His mother had even taught him to recite a small prayer before healing each of the beggars. This wasted a lot of time and had no real effect on the process.

Little Robert went unnoticed by his mother for his first year in the world. Who could blame her? She was fostering a prodigal son all alone. Joe wouldn’t leave his sales route, even after the incident at the pool, and was still gone nine months out of the year. Adam was getting mainly local attention at this point, so Joe was safe to lead his quadruple life in secret.

When Robert was one year old, his sister Beth set her room on fire. Nothing in this family was usual and neither was this fire, it birthed no smoke or damage. About half an hour passed until the fire was put out by Los Angeles finest, and the room remained unscathed. Beth had presented. She was 10.
Now there were three: Adam, who was getting most of the attention, Jeremy, born to his mother Erica in Seattle, and the somewhat destructive Beth. All were happy about this turn of events. The children were getting more than enough of everything but love, and their mothers were happy with the attention. Joe, on the other hand, was unpleased. It was all fine by him at first, of course, but now he began to see a pattern emerging that no one else had noticed. All three of these special children were his. They were all becoming famous and soon someone would have to notice their common father. These little curses, as blessed as they were, were threatening to destroy his life. Or at least change it. Then the phone rang.
‘Joe, honey, something amazing just happened.’ Said his wife Nicole from New York ‘you won’t believe it if I told you.’
But Joe did believe. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.
‘Little Paul got into a fight today. He beat the hell out of some boy at school...’

Paul was a special child. Only 10 years old but had the temper of a teenager. His ability to heal presented itself through a certain amount of violence. A simple touch wouldn’t do but a good smack would clear up just about anything. This would be a cause of much frustration to the boy, who would genuinely be interested in harming those he struck. Sadly for him, each time his opponents would come out of the experience feeling better than when they went in.

‘Are you coming home?’ she added, finally.
‘I’ll be there in two months, as usual.’ Joe replied coldly. ‘Please, try not to tell anyone.’