On the way home, Phillip stopped the car at a local beauty spot, where he and his mother used to feed the ducks. This place had been their secret, the scraps of bread saved and practically smuggled out of the house, simply so his father wouldn’t learn of the one place where he and his mother could escape. Ironic that now he knew bread wasn’t good for the animals; he tried not to let that taint the memory. Here, he and his mother seldom spoke, just fed the ducks, sharing ten or fifteen minutes of mindless peace. Although the pond lacked a large number of ducks today, the same sense of serenity prevailed.
If karma existed in the world, maybe that was why the old bastard had died first. Phillip hadn’t been able to persuade his mother to sell up, leave the bad memories in the house, but in a
