Page 7 of Second Chances

I don’t need to think about it, because I know exactly what I would do. It would be the same response as that of anyone who’s been trained in MI5: I’d try to keep them both alive, but if I couldn’t, I’d save the innocent.

“Yes, I’d kill him.”

“Exactly.” The counselor, flips through a few pages in the file he has on me. “Sally Bridgewater was not a good woman. She wasn’t along the lines of a terrorist, but she’d done some despicable things to her son.”

The picture of Sally dying comes into my head. I killed her by wrapping my hands around her neck and strangling the last breath from her. She was already half dead when I’d found her. Sophie, my sister, had been in a fight with her earlier, and Sally had fallen and banged her head, which rendered her unconscious.

For a long time, I allowed Sophie to believe she’d killed Sally. It’s one of the first things I admitted to my sister after coming to the asylum—I no longer wanted her to suffer the guilt. I couldn’t believe it when Sophie instantly forgave me. However, I think Grayson, her husband, will take a little while longer to be persuaded. Sally was the mother of Askhii, Grayson’s son. She didn’t tell him he had a child, and instead, she sold their baby into a living hell—a mirror of my own childhood. I’m lucky I can now see Ash flourish under the love of Grayson and his new mother, Sophie.

“I didn’t have any right to take her life,” I respond. My miserable state, flooding every pore of my body.

“Just like your grandfather had no right to cut you out of your mother’s body and take you away from us.” It’s my father who speaks this time. I’ve discovered he’s the pragmatic one. He’s a matter of fact person while my mother is much more emotional.

“That’s different,” I reply and flick at the imaginary lint again. My father gets to his feet and starts pacing the room.

“I don’t agree with that bullshit.” My father shakes his head. “There are certain people in this world who deserve everything coming to them. That's what your counselor is saying. The man holding a child and threatening to kill them is inherently evil. No good person would endanger a child. That is exactly what Sally Bridgewater did. She was evil. She did whatever she needed to get a story—that was why she conceived Ash in the first place. When he became an inconvenience to her lifestyle, she sold him. Your grandfather was the same. He took your mother from me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Miranda had to go through so much only to have you cut from her stomach and taken away. He was evil. You, Ryan, are not. I can see it in your face, and even in the career you chose, for goodness sake. Your job’s about helping and protecting people. You lost your way, but you’re back in the arms of your family now, and we won’t let you continue to allow your grandfather to win. He didn’t want us to be a family. He wanted to see us all destroyed. Well that’s not going to happen. You’re going to pull yourself together and get out there in the world and survive. I have two sons, a daughter, and numerous grandchildren. I want more grandchildren as well. I want to die happy in my bed, knowing my legacy is a strong family, not whimpering on the floor like your grandfather, because I have a stick so far up my ass that I don’t know right from wrong anymore. There’s no evil in you whatsoever. If there was, Miranda and I would have been dead the first opportunity you got. Your revenge plan was a way of delaying what you saw as the only inevitable course of action.” My father lets out a large huff of air when he finishes speaking. I look at my mother as a small smirk crosses her lips.

“I think your father has just given you your first telling off.”

“Too right.” My father slams the fist of his right hand into his left palm. “I won’t have a son of mine talking down about himself like this. You’ve harmed and even killed people while under the illusion that we didn’t love you, but I bet you’ve saved countless more throughout your life. You’re a good man, Ryan, despite what happened to you. Now snap out of this funk you’re in because it’s time for you to come home, so we can be a proper family together. James has purchased the mansions on either side of his for you and Sophie, and they need to be lived in.”

“I…” I’m not really sure what to say to my parents.

“You love me?” I reply unable to believe all that I’m hearing.

My father rolls his eyes. “Seriously. Did you not listen to a word we’ve said over the last few weeks?”

“I did.”

“Then you know we love you. We looked for you every day of our lives. You mentioned seeing two people arrive in a Ford Cortina outside your foster home the day your grandfather took you—that was us. It broke our hearts to learn we’d just missed you.”

“It’s true.” My mother wipes a tear from her eye, and I wrap my arm around her to bring her close.

“I always remember those first days after I left Charlene and Dwayne. I felt no guilt for killing them.”

“Again, they deserved it. If they hadn’t already been dead by the time we arrived there, they would have been before we left,” my father interrupts.

“My grandfather told me I had to stay hidden. He locked me away and shipped me off to boarding school at the first opportunity. He never spent any time with me, and when he did, it was to fill my head with lies and nonsense about both of you. He was a bitter, hateful man. He couldn’t control those around him, and it twisted him into someone without compassion or the capacity to love. I don’t know how I didn’t see it.”

“Because you wanted love … a family. In your grandfather, you saw it could be possible with someone of your own blood. We understand everything you did. We would have done the same in your position. It’s our fault for not finding you sooner.” My mother is properly weeping now, her head leaning against my chest and over my heart. I can see her hand wrapped around the locket at her neck. It contains a small piece of my baby hair.

“The only way for me to grow is to live. If I allow myself to wallow in the guilt of my earlier mistakes and misunderstandings, I’ll let him win.”

“Exactly.” My father is animated and claps his hands together. “Son, our first born, we can’t turn back time, but we can move forward together, and the only way to do that is to get you out of here and living again.”

“S-Son?” My voice catches on the word.

“That is what you are.” My father comes over and places his left hand on my shoulder and takes my mother’s hand in the other when she offers it.

“I’m a member of your family with James and Sophie?”

“Yes,” both my parents reply at once.

I get to my feet, and the three of us embrace. It’s the first time since we were on the roof, and I savor every moment of it. I’ve been reborn again. I’ll always carry a dark streak with me—it’s who I am, but I know the direction I need to take now. The path of protecting my family, not trying to destroy them. They’re my everything.

My counselor coughs behind us. We turn and look at him. I’m in the middle, and my parents are either side of me.

“I would say that’s a pretty phenomenal breakthrough in your treatment. How would you like to try and get back to some sort of normality?”

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