OH MAN I GUESS IT’S TIME NOW HUH???? THEN HERE WE GO KIDS
So Abner is one of the older cousins (about 7 years older than Fethry). He’s not much bigger or taller then other kids his age, but he’s built like a brick wall and stronger than he looks FOR SURE. He’s a rowdy kid, often getting into lighthearted trouble and roughhousing with other boys in the school yard, but all in all, he really is a good kid.
He helps his dad out with the chores on his gran’s ranch without complaint, does the nitty gritty jobs so that his gran doesn’t have to, and isn't afraid to give his mom a hug and a kiss in front of the other school boys (even if they’ll make fun of him later for it, which he’ll then get into a tussle about, but more for the sake of principle than actually denying that he’s a momma’s boy and is embarrassed by her affection.) He really is, truly, a good kid. Just a bit rough around the edges is all.
He’s not good around kids though. He never really payed much attention to his younger cousins till they were old enough to actually hang around with. Donald was always a little too feisty and eager to prove himself, which Abner could respect, and he was fun to wrestle with once he was actually able to hold his own. Della talked a lot, but momma said that was just a girl thing, despite her being just as eager to wrestle and get down and dirty with the boys. Gladstone showed off too much, but sometimes his luck would get them free ice cream down at the shops on Sunday afternoons, so he wasn’t too annoying to hang out with. And it helped that Gus was around his age, and able to help him round up the little gang of hooligans when it got a little too much for Abner to deal with sometimes.
And then Fethry came around.
And he was small. Smaller than the others had been, almost tiny in comparison, and Abner felt his heart flinch every time someone asked him to hold his baby brother. (Either for a family pic for granny or to help momma out sometimes when she was busy)
It wasn’t like Abner didn’t like Fethry. He was a relatively easy baby. Hardly ever cried, compared to what Abner remembered of his cousins as babies, and usually was content just to be held and giggle. Abner just didn’t know what to DO with the kid.
He was just. So. Little. little enough that one wrong move from Abner and his baby brother would break into a million pieces. Not to mention the kid was so adored by everyone around him and was the complete opposite of Abner in every way. Abner didn’t think he could stomach the idea of being the reason this little kid, who was all smiles and stars in his wide brown eyes, cried or got hurt.
So Abner did was any kid his age could do in his situation and just sort of,,, avoided Fethry. Not to be mean or difficult, but just to be safe. Just until Fethry was a little older, a little less breakable.
As the years went by though, it became harder and harder to break this avoiding game they were playing, despite Fethry’s BEST efforts. Because the kid LOVED his cool and distant older brother. He’d follow Abner everywhere he went, would try to copy some of Abner’s poorer choice habits (which horrified Abner to no end, thus furthering his efforts to keep away from Fethry so as not to taint the kid) And even though Fethry got older and wasn’t the baby he used to be, he somehow got even more fragile, even more precious before Abner’s eyes. The kid was as pure hearted as could be, while Abner, entering his early teen years, became more and more rambunctious with his shenanigans and got into a lot more trouble than he was probably worth. He became to hard to be near the kid, a shining beacon of everything good in the world, where Abner was bordering on the darker side of that shadow the beacon cast.
Abner didn’t really mean to get into as many arguments about his estrangement with his kid brother with his folks, mostly his dad. But it was hard to explain himself. Abner was a little too much like his father, where words were hard to come by and actions always did the job of conveying his thoughts anyway. His mother, a kind hearted and gentle spirit, was always able to see through his rough exterior and understand him perfectly, but even she was having difficultly understanding his hesitance to be around Fethry. Abner wished he could be a little bit more like Fethry, the spitting image of his mother’s kind soul, But alas, he was too much like Eider, and that made the two butt heads more often than not.
It was Gladstone’s 7th birthday when the incident occurred.
The party was being held at granny’s ranch, and it was a big family todo, (family events always were) and Abner was getting a little too smothered with all the constant chatter and loud music. He had only stepped away just to catch his breath, to be able to breathe a little easier without all the commotion. He had taken a walk down to the little pond at the bottom of the hill.
He didn’t really like water all that much. He wasn’t a very good swimmer, and after the summer he broke into the movie theatre with some friends to see an R-rated horror film about a sea monster when he was 9, he’d never really been able to look at a body of water the same again. But he had half an egg sandwich he swiped from the buffet table in his hoodie jacket, and feeding the bluegills was always something that calmed him down, so standing on the little dock didn’t seem too scary.
Abner didn’t realize Fethry had followed him down to the pond. He should have. Of course he should have known the kid would. Fethry followed him everywhere, like a little duckling would. Abner should have realized Fethry would have trailed along right behind him.
But he didn’t. He was too stuck in his own head, trying to calm himself down from getting too overstimulated from the party. He didn’t realize Fethry was right behind him.
He didn’t mean to jerk as hard as he did, when Fethry has reached out towards him, he really, honestly, didn’t. The kid had startled him, and Abner was acting on school yard protective reflexes faster than he could stop himself.
To this day he doesn’t really know if he actually pushed Fethry in or not. It hurts to think about. All he knows for sure is two things.
That Fethry fell into the water.
And that Abner didn’t jump in to save him.
Someone did though, Donald a few seconds later. Where he had come from, Abner couldn’t bother to ponder about. Donald had always been a little too protective over Fethry, acting on those big brother instincts far better than Abner ever did. He must have followed after Fethry when he noticed the little 4 year old duckling toddle away from any adult eyes. He had jumped in the water immediately to save Fethry.
Abner wasn’t even sure if the Donald could swim. It didn’t matter if he could though. That wasn’t the point. The point was that Abner didn’t jump in, regardless of whatever excuse he could come up with.
And he tried, for years. Abner spent countless hours trying to wrap his head around why he never jumped in. Why he couldn’t move. Why is heart felt like it broke the second Fethry’s signature, stupidly big hat, disappeared under the water. Why it didn’t feel better when both he and Donald broke the surface again, whole seconds later.
The coming days would be a blur after that. A hazy blur that Abner didn’t like thinking too hard about.
The adults had come to the rescue a few minutes later, Gladstone and Della must have ran to get them after Donald had jumped into the water after Fethry. Fethry ended up ok, if not a little water logged and shaken, understandably. They had demanded to know what had happened.
And Abner couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even make eye contact. Just stared at his own feet, his hands clenching in his hoodie pockets hard enough to leave bruising as he willed the pain in his chest to go away. Donald had no such reservations, and told the story as he saw it.
That Abner has pushed Fethry into the lake.
Abner couldn’t very well refute it, no matter how much he wanted to. He didn’t mean to push Fethry if he did, he didn’t mean to not jump in after him. He didn’t mean to hurt Fethry. He never did. Fethry was the last person on the earth that Abner wanted to hurt. But that didn’t change the fact that he did hurt Fethry, and that he didn’t do anything to change that.
He was sent away to a boarding school the following week. A school for lost and wayward boys. Boys who had caused so much havoc in their lives, that their parents didn’t know what to do with them or how to help them anymore. It was, for a lot of cases, a last ditch effort to save some reckless boys from causing any more damage to themselves and the people around them. Abner was one of those cases.
He didn’t want to go. Had begged and pleaded and fought tooth and nail not to go. Momma, the sweet soul that she was, didn’t seem like she wanted to send him away either. But Fethry had almost drowned, and neither of them could deny that Abner was the cause of it, and had said nothing to his defense against it. But Pa’s word was final, and Abner couldn’t do anything about it.
The school was strict, but it had never met a challenger quite like Abner Duck. Stubbornness was something tangible, flowing in his veins like the rest of the spitfire Duck traits he inherited, and Abner proved himself to be quite the problem child that everyone had always painted him out to be.
It was about a year later, that Abner got the letter from his gran that his mother had fallen ill. She died the following spring.
Abner felt out of sorts in his suit that didn’t fit him quite right as he stood in the spring rain at his mother’s grave spot. It was under the little oak tree on the hill overlooking gran’s ranch. The pond Fethry had almost drowned in was just a little bit away, in viewing distance at the bottom of the hill. Fethry was on the other side of his father. Abner felt bile creep up in his throat whenever Fethry would peek over at Abner with wide brown eyes that reminded Abner too much of their mother, and try to give him a smile. Abner tried not to hate him in that moment. It wasn’t Fethry’s fault. He was only 5. He didn’t understand what was going on. Didn’t realize the weight of momma’s death. Still didn’t really understand why Abner hadn’t been around the past few months, but still. There was a pit of anger burning itself into Abner’s stomach that he didn’t know what to do with.
He hadn’t seen his mother in almost a year, and now he’ll never get to see her. Never get to hold her hands or give her hugs or eat her brown sugar cookies that was the only thing she could bake without burning. The last memory he has of her alive is when she hugged him goodbye before the boarding school bus took him away. Abner was too upset and angry that he didn’t hug her back. If he had known that was going to be his last moments of her, he would have turned around in his bus seat, to at least see her wave him off, with little Fethry, not understanding the situation at all, waving good bye too.
Abner was incredibly heartbroken, but more than that, he was furious. Furious that his father had sent him away in the first place. Away from his mother, the only person who really saw him for his worth. They had gotten into another fight that night, screaming at each other so loudly that they neighbors dogs, a whole acre away, could hear them and started barking in turn. Abner doesn’t remember a whole lot of the fight. Just that they were both raw from grief and heartbreak, and that Abner knew, that without his mom, he couldn’t stay in that house. Not with a dad who was a little too much like him, and a baby brother who couldn’t have been more different. Abner left for the school again the next morning. He hated being in the school, but it was the only place that was familiar enough to return to, without feeling like it was a home.
Abner got the news that his father died half a year later. Abner didn’t bother going to the funeral, no matter how devastated he was about the news. The only person left from their broken little family, the only person who would, undoubtedly, be waiting for him, was Fethry. And Abner couldn’t see him. Not now. He didn’t know when, but certainly not now. Not after everything that had happened between them.
Abner decided it was best to keep the distance between himself and Fethry. Nothing good came from them being near each other, and this way, Abner knew that at the very least, Fethry would be safer without him around. Fethry had granny to take care of him, and Donald and Della and Gladstone to keep him company. He didn’t need Abner.
Fethry would be better off without him.
