“Let’s be clear about this, I don’t want a relationship with you. After today, you’ll never see me again so don’t get any ideas. And don’t call me son. I want answers; that’s it. I think you owe me that much.”
His expression was impassive, and I had no idea what was going through his head. I used to think I knew what he was thinking, what punishment I’d get for swearing or how he’d react to a bad grade. Turns out, I never knew him at all.
“I understand,” he finally said. “I am sorry for what I did, Jasper. I’ve been receiving treatment in here.”
“Don’t,” I growled. “There is nothing you can say that’ll ever make up for what you did so don’t go there. If you even mention her name, I’ll be out of here and you can rot.”
He nodded once.
“I want to know why.”
“I was sick, Jasper.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Most parents would die for their children. They’d give them their heart if they needed it. Why were we not enough?”
His mouth pressed into a thin line.
“I regret my actions, and I’m trying to get better. I’m truly sorry that I hurt you, all of you, but I can’t change the past.”
“You broke our family up, betrayed us all in the worst way, and all you can say is sorry. Mum cried every night. You have any idea of the guilt Mum and I feel over this? We did nothing, yet we’re the ones that feel we let her down. You sit there saying you’re all better, well fucking great for you, but what about us? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I understand the repercussions of my actions, Jasper, of course. It was never my intention to hurt any of you.”
Was he for real?
“You’re not answering me. Why did you do it?”
“I honestly do not know. I’ve gone over that in treatment, but I still don’t know. The answer you’re looking for, I don’t have. I was ill, Jasper.”
“Ill. Like the way you tried to make the court believe Oakley was? Were you ill when you researched a personality disorder that could have explained her being mute for eleven fucking years? Was it the illness that drove you to do that?”
“You’re angry. I am too.”
I stood up. This was going nowhere. He wasn’t going to accept responsibility for anything. In his head, he was still the respectable father and businessman. He’d made things acceptable in his head. He could say sorry a million times, but it was all for show. It was always all for show.
“You know what, you’re a sad, lonely old man. Think what you like but we all know what your sickness is. You’re hiding behind something that makes you the victim. I don’t know why I even wasted time being angry with you. You’re a coward. Goodbye, Max.”
I stormed past him towards the exit. A guard opened the door as he saw me approach. My clenched hands shook, but I felt about a stone lighter. Like storm clouds had passed and I could finally see the possibility of clear skies
I’d got no answers, but that was okay because I didn’t really need them. What I’d needed all along was to say the things to him I just had: I had to look him in the eye and dismiss him from my life. I hadn’t had closure before, but that was what it felt like I’d just found. I’d closed that chapter of my life, and I could move on without hating him with a vengeance every single day. I didn’t have to feel anything for him at all.
He was no one.
Epilogue
Jasper
I parked outside our old house and stared at it. It held so many good memories and one massive bad one. It wasn’t just a house. It was my childhood, and the place my family turned to shit. Sure, we’d still been Mum, Oakley and Jasper, but it wasn’t the same. We’d been fucked up, all of us. We’d carried around insecurities, fear and anger and to some degree still did.
Oakley had been back here and turned a tormenting house into a pile of bricks in her head. I wanted it just to be a house again. Since Oakley’s visit there had been new owners. The day I saw a picture of it staring back at me from the estate agent’s window still haunted me. I hadn’t expected it. I thought it was nothing. I thought it was all nothing but I couldn’t push it to the back of my head any more, it had fucked me up.
Now it was time to take control and face it all.
I didn’t need to go inside; just looking at the exterior was enough. Gripping the steering wheel, I let the memories flood my mind. Some were good – most were good.
Water fights with Dad in the summer and snowball fights in the winter. Him teaching me to ride a bike. Birthday parties we’d had in the house and back garden. Him giving me ‘the talk’ when I was sixteen – though it was awkward and two years too late. Playing football on the lawn against Cole and his dad, David.