The phone rang once and stopped. It rang again. This was it now. Stanley knew he had to answer the phone. And he knew he had to answer the phone now or he would be the cause of his mother’s and sister’s deaths.
On the last phone call, his big brother Daniel said that they wanted him, Stanley, to answer the next phone call to get the directions to the drop-point for the ransom money.
Stanley knew why. He knew why they wanted him to do it instead of his big brother or dad. He knew that they knew about him and his problems. They thought, like everyone else did, that he was going to mess it up. They thought that because of his mental defect which caused him to not be able to control his movements and words that he wouldn’t be able to follow their instructions.
That’s why they wanted him to do it. They wanted him to mess up so they could get their revenge on Stanley’s father. They wanted to have a ‘legitimate’ reason, so to speak, for killing John Wilson’s wife and daughter. The real reason for their revenge was to punish John for stealing money from their father’s businesses. The big fashion tycoon, Robert Newman, owned several top-selling fashion companies and John was the accountant for him and his businesses. Robert suspected that he was being cheated somehow and hired his lawyers to look over his account books to make sure everything was in order. The lawyers found inconsistencies with the books, Robert’s accounts and his profits for each month. They said it had to be someone professional altering the books and since John was the accountant he was thee first suspect. After truthfully denying everything and passing a polygraph test, Robert still didn’t believe him. So he ordered his two sons to capture John’s soon and wife. If John could pay the money, his suspicions were right and he would kill them. If he didn’t pay the money, which would prove Robert was wrong, he would still kill them. Either way he would teach John a lesson: don’t mess with a Newman.
Stanley was mad at them because he knew it wasn’t his dad. One day when his father had taken him into work with him, he saw his father’s assistant, Eric, altering the books but poor Stanley couldn’t do anything. His body wouldn’t listen to his mind.
The sound of the phone ringing a third time brought Stanley back to his present problem: the ransom call that would forever alter his life and the lives of many others, if he didn’t do it right.
Stanley remembered yesterday when his mother Carmen and his sister Julia were taken from their stroll in the park with him. He remembered that he didn’t do anything; he just stood there helplessly watching the masked men take his beloved mother and sister.
“No, not today,” Stanley thought with determination, “Not this time. I am not going to mess this up.”
Stanley firmly resolved within himself that he was going to do something right and he was going to do it now! He looked at his big brother, Dan, for the support that he always found within his deep dark green eyes. He also saw the love and the care which had been there from the time Stanley was only a baby. He loved Dan the most because of it. He remembered that when he was a little baby and couldn’t control his strange movements that Dan would cradle him in his arms. And when he got older the love and the gentleness with which he rocked him to sleep after he woke up crying after a nightmare that he often had. When his parents wanted to give up on him Dan wouldn’t let them. He had the patience and the love to keep trying with Stanley. Daniel made Stanley the sixteen year old he was today.
Stanley looked at his twenty eight year old big brother and picked up the phone…
“Do you want some more soda, Stanley?” his eight year old sister Julia asked.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough soda, now, to fill a whole truck and still have more to drink?” his father laughed as his son accepted his sister’s offer.
Hearing this made Stanley laugh so much he spit out his soda, which caused the whole family, including Carmen and Daniel, to fall over in laughter.
“Wow,” said Dan after the laughter died down, “It’s been only almost a whole year since the day Stanley, here, saved all of us from those stupid idiots of Robert Newman’s son.”
“He sure made us proud when he was able to keep calm enough to answer the phone call and at the drop-point. He even stayed so calm when the police started shooting at those criminals.” His father beamed with pride at Stanley who was the hero of that dreadful day of February 16th last year, the day he saved his mother and sister.
“Son, if…if I haven’t told you this before, it’s really overdue. Stanley, I love and I’m proud you are my son.”
Stanley was so overjoyed that he said through tears, “Dad, I love you, too!”