In the days that followed the family reunion in the hospital, the world felt bleached and overexposed, like a photograph left too long in the sun. My mother sat beside my bed and told me that Officer Swan, the local cop who had once shared beers and old stories with my late father, had taken up the investigation. Swan had seen the subtle hints of a home life that was anything but peaceful, so he suspected the reasons for that night’s slaying even before my mother spoke.. He listened. He asked questions. He wrote everything down.
My mother told him the truth, and he reported to the department that this was a clear-cut case of self-defense.
Long had I feared that the history between my father and I would stack the odds against me. Hate is an ugly thing to admit, especially when it is directed at your own blood. I hated him for what he’d done to me and the rest of the family. I hated the way he could turn a house into a war zone with nothing but his voice. But the record showed what it showed. He had threatened my life on more than one occasion. He had made it plain that one day he might finish what he started. That gave me reasonable cause to carry a firearm into the room that night. Reasonable cause. Such a small, sterile phrase for a lifetime of dread.
Lloyd, Carol, Derek, and Katie came to visit me every day. Hospitals have a way of shrinking time into beeps and footsteps, but their presence pushed back the walls. They got to know my mother and sister well. They said that I’d become like part of the family since I’d started working on the ranch, and my mother thanked them for taking me in. Gratitude trembled in her voice, hinting at the guilt with which she struggled.
They explained to me that, according to Sheriff Dawes, the three men who’d invaded their home were the same ones who’d been robbing gas stations in the area. Predators who preferred the quiet roads and the smell of cattle to the noise and many eyes of the city. They’d also burglarized a house on the outskirts of the county. It was common knowledge that farmers sometimes invested in silver and other precious metals, tucking them away in heavy safes rather than trusting it all to banks and city folk in suits. Lloyd said the local community would hail me as a hero for helping put a stop to their crime spree.
“Hero.” The word felt surreal. For so long I was sure I was the villain of the story.
Lilah came to visit me too. The moment she walked in the door, a sharp pang of guilt took hold of my heart. She stood there with her hands folded and said she knew why I ran away from the law but couldn’t understand why I didn’t go to her rather than simply drive off into the boonies. She said she couldn’t be with a man who would so casually abandon her and Ophelia.
I told her I understood, and that was the last I saw of either of them. Thinking on that still breaks my heart, but maybe a man who abandons his chance at fatherhood doesn’t get a second one.
On the day that the hospital released me, Officer Swan showed up to escort me into police custody. The sky outside was a hard, indifferent blue. Swan’s expression was softer. He said that even though the killing was clearly in self-defense, I did flee with my father’s gun in hand, which could be considered stealing a deadly weapon. The law likes its boxes checked. There would have to be a trial. Officer Swan introduced me to a lawyer friend of his who agreed to take on the case pro bono.
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The press, I discovered, had little interest in the story. They reported the initial killing of a local volunteer firefighter, but that was the end of it. No one came to ask me any questions. I did not see my name in online articles or the papers after that. They were far more interested in a local politician who’d been caught embezzling taxpayer funds and using them to pay for prostitutes. Nothing like a good political sex scandal to steal the spotlight. Domestic violence could not compete with the seductive allure of sin in city hall.
If you’ve learned anything about me by reading this story so far, I’m sure you can anticipate that the trial was a terrifying time for me. Courtrooms are cold places, even in summer. The prosecution fought hard to see me punished to the full extent of the law. They spoke about responsibility and consequence as if those words had never woken up screaming in the middle of the night. Thorn and the other voices in my head came out to play. They whispered of iron bars, narrow cots, and evil men who would do terrible things to me. They painted pictures of what fates awaited me in a prison cell, each image more horrific than the last.
But in the end, the judge ruled that rather than send me to prison, he’d order me to the care of a mental hospital. His voice carried the weight of something almost like mercy. He said that no one who goes through what I went through, growing up in a home where his life is constantly threatened, could be expected to be psychologically healthy afterward. He said I wasn’t evil, I was sick, and I needed healing.
And so, I was admitted to Silverwood Wellness Center, which is where I am even as I write this. The place smells of antiseptic and over brewed coffee. The halls are painted in calming shades that try very hard to convince you that nothing awful has ever happened. My family visits often, as do Lloyd and his family. Their footsteps down the corridor are a kind of promise. Katie has dropped hints that once I’m well again, she’d like to pick up where we left off. Even after knowing what I did, that I wasn’t well, and all that I went through, she still wanted me around. Something in that felt good, like sunlight through a barred window.
Thus, I have hope that I’ll recover someday, reader. Maybe someday, in the not-too-distant future, I can rejoin society. Maybe I can go back to Lloyd’s ranch and continue to work there as a ranch hand, breathing in hay and honest sweat instead of disinfectant and regret. I think I might have my name legally changed to Alex, because Vincent died that night that he killed his father. Vincent was a victim, but it seems Alex is the name of a hero in some people’s eyes.
Sometimes it still bothers me that when I look in the mirror I see my father’s face. The jaw. The eyes. The shadow that seems to sit just behind them. At times, I think he was not a man, but a demon wearing human guise. His blood runs in my veins, that same demonic blood that boiled so hot so often, urging him to hurt me, to threaten me, and to take my life.
But my time in the hospital reminded me that my mother’s blood was in my veins too. She was not bold or courageous, but she was innocent. There is a quiet strength in innocence, a refusal to become what hurt you. So, I had that going for me.
It is not the blood of our fathers that defines us, it is the choices we make with the life that is given to us. That is what I hope for. That is what I must hope for.
