Read Mother Be The Judge for Free Online Page A

was back to being the lumpy potato; days spent waiting for Adrian to come home had made her reach for the biscuit jar regularly, but she felt her age meant that it was ok to be a bit bigger around the middle. There was no one to ask an opinion of so she would keep her own counsel and accept her self-assessed compliment.
    Jocasta had spent far too much time gawping at herself in the mirror; she jumped in the shower and quickly scrabbled at her hair with shampoo, allowing the soapy water to cleanse the rest of her body. She needed to hurry, it was nearly time to get Adrian up for school and sort his breakfast out. He was ten now but Jocasta still liked to help him get dressed in the morning, she knew her role on this earth and that was to be a mother to her son.
    -x-
    7am.
    Jocasta walked into Adrian's room. She knew he didn't like the light being switched on as it hurt his eyes so Jocasta walked to the Scooby Doo curtains and pulled them open for him. "Good morning sleepy head," she said and turned to tickle Adrian's foot which was poking out from the quilt at the side of his bed. Immediately she knew that something wasn't right, Adrian's foot felt slick with sweat and hot to touch.
    "Adrian, are you alright my darling?" She pulled down the quilt to find Adrian's hair also wet with sweat. Heat emanated from his whole body, it was a tangible extra layer on his skin.
    "Adrian?"
    "Mummy I don't feel well."
    "I know darling, where does it hurt?"
    "I don't know; down here," he said, indicating to his lower stomach by rubbing at the bottom of his belly. "I think it's my willy." He was lying on his side in a foetal position, pulling his legs up and rocking as if to relieve a pain.
    "Your..." what? That didn't sound like a plausible place for Adrian to have a problem. "Let me see Adrian, let mummy see where it hurts."
    Adrian rolled onto his back and weakly pulled at his pyjama bottoms. Jocasta could see how weak he was and realised this was no time to afford Adrian his privacy. She grabbed at his pyjamas and hurriedly pulled them down. Adrian's testicles were swollen; they were turning black as Jocasta looked at them. She held onto a scream, not wanting to scare Adrian.
    "Ok Adrian, we need to take you to the hospital."
    "Why mummy?" he began to whimper, "What's wrong, why does it hurt?"
    "It's going to be ok, they are just a little bit sore and are making you ill darling, I am going to get you some medicine and call an ambulance, you would like a ride in an ambulance wouldn't you?" Jocasta was sure that had Adrian been feeling better he would have protested at the very notion of medicine considering his ability to projectile vomit at the first hint of it, but his quiet acquiescence made her realise this was bad and Adrian desperately needed help. She rushed to make the phone call which would save her baby's life then retrieved the medicine from the cupboard in the bathroom and returned to Adrian's side, pouring the medicine into a spoon, her shaking hands causing more of it to fall on the floor than remain on the metal disc.
    Jocasta climbed into the divan bed which had Scooby Doo sheets to match the curtains and the rug on the bedroom floor. She brought Adrian towards her and sat him up as much as she could, stuffing pillows and teddies behind him to prop him up. "Here Adrian, take this." She said as she offered him a spoonful of the pink sticky mixture. She had to push the spoon into his mouth as Adrian hardly seemed to be able to move. His body was actually burning the very parts of skin which Jocasta was touching him with, she realised she would have to let go of Adrian as her embrace would only make him hotter.
    -x-
    An image of Adrian's funeral played itself in Jocasta's mind as she sat and waited for what seemed like forever. She wouldn't let the funeral parlour dress him, she would do it herself. Jocasta imagined going into the mortuary with Adrian's favourite clothes, no, not clothes, his pyjamas; he was going to sleep for a