Page 53 of My Fiancé's Brother 2

Feb 13, 1987- I can’t seem to stop going back to see Melody, no matter how much I tell her and myself that it’s going to be the last time. I hate myself, and part of me hates her, but it doesn’t seem to stop my depraved behavior. The things we do together. My God. This feels like a sickness, like an addiction. I’m drowning in my lust, and I can’t get enough. I can’t stop.

March 10, 1987- Melody told me tonight that she is pregnant with my child. I gave her money to terminate. She cried, but she promised. Terrible thoughts of leaving Irene flood my mind. What if I left Irene for Melody and our child? I keep telling myself that this is wrong, but this thought returns again and again to my mind.

March 11, 1987- I went to the motel tonight and Melody was gone. She has disappeared. I spent most of my shift driving the streets looking for her, but no one has talked to her or knows where she is.

March 21, 1987- I have spent the last ten days looking for Melody, but she has vanished into thin air. It may seem like I got away with my sins but I didn’t. The hell is that my mind replaysevery moment we spent together over and over again in my mind. I feel like I’m going insane. I need to forget her. She is gone.

Sept 26, 1987- Tonight Irene gave birth to Mathew. My son. I have spent every single night since Melody has gone missing looking for her. Tonight that search ends. When I’m done writing this entry, I will hide this journal in a box in the attic, and I will try and forget about the girl/woman who took something from me and left without giving it back.

June 22, 1993- Seven years have passed since I’ve written in this journal. The only place that made sense to write about what happened tonight was in this book.

Tonight I responded to a homicide. The female victim was shot to death. The victim was found naked in the tub, shot in the heart. It was Melody. She looked like she was asleep, her perfect features soft and beautiful even in death. I don’t know how I got through my shift. I was in shock, just going through the motions. Every time I have bedded my wife, I have needed thoughts of Melody to finish. And now she is gone. Her life was short, harsh and so meaningless.

September 22, 1993- It has been three months since I found Melody in that bathtub. Tonight I responded to a call about an out of control drunk man screaming at his apartment. As we were pulling away in the patrol car, he said, “Don’t forget the kid.”

I volunteered to go back up to that shit apartment and take a look. I nosed around the place. It was a filthy putrid dump not fit for a human to live in. Under the bed was the smallest child you could imagine. Big green eyes, dirty. Staring at me with defiance. He carried a tiny little tin box which he refused to give up. We took him back to the station. Other than being filthy he looked healthy to me. He fell asleep on the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room.

It was sheer curiosity that led me to look in that tin box after he had fallen asleep. And that is the moment that my life changed for the worse. Inside was a tin soldier, one marble, a gum wrapper and a photo of my precious, beautiful Melody holding a baby. On the back, it said one word, “Jackson”. I felt sick to my stomach. This wasMelody’s child. I needed to make sure he wasn’t mine. I bribed him with a hot chocolate if he let me swab his cheek. I swabbed my own, wrote up a fake report around the testing and sent it to the DNA lab.

December 19, 1993- The paternity test with the kid was positive. Melody hadn’t terminated. The kid under the bed was mine.

December 26, 1993- I have been stalking my own child. I drive past the apartment in which I found him and twice now I have seen Jackson playing by himself. He seems impervious to the cold. I have never seen him with toys or other children. He just talks to himself and is in his own world.

I can’t believe that Melody left me so that she could have this child. I know it sounds irrational, but Jackson, this snotty-nosed kid, is the reason Melody left me. She chose HIM over me. I know it’s not reasonable thinking, but I hate this kid with my entire heart. Because of him, I lost her. There are moments when the rage in my heart is so black and so dark I want to hurt him as badly as his mother hurt me. She left me. So my response is that I am going to forget about him and leave him in the gutter that he deserves to be in.

January 28, 1994- He is back. Jackson is again sleeping in the waiting room of our station. He is wary of me. He seems half starved. I gave him my lunch. His green eyes remind me so much of Melody. I want to slap his face for having part of her in him. I hate him. I sound stupid even to write that down, but that is honestly how I feel. Hatred.

February 12, 1994- I can’t seem to stop obsessing over Jackson. I drive by his school. I check up regularly on him and Ted. When Ted is sober, he’s an incompetent utterly useless guardian but harmless as well. He gets Jackson to school and once I saw Ted carry Jackson on his shoulders on the way home from school.

Today I saw them playing tag in the park. Jackson was running away from Ted, laughing so hard, head thrown back. At that moment I saw his mother. He had the same carefree joy that you want to capture but you can’t. That freedom that you long for but is so elusive. When I see him, I just feel anger and despair.

Feb 28, 1994- Irene is livid with me. For reasons I don’t understand myself, I brought Jackson home with me while Ted slept off yet another drunk in the tank. Jackson fought me tooth and nail, screaming, biting and fighting when I took him away from the police station. He was like a savage little wild animal. His eyes, they haunt me. When he looks at me - I see only her.

April 9, 1994- Jackson has become a regular feature in our home. I can tell that Irene hates this child who just stares back at her. Nothing seems to bother him. He sees everything, and he says nothing. Irene says that he creeps her out, but his big green-eyed stare reminds me so much of Melody. My obsession with him rages on. So does my self-hatred.

August 19, 1994- Tonight a domestic disturbance at Ted’s. The scene we found reminded me of the first night I found Melody. Ted was a raving lunatic. It took three of us to restrain him. I found Jackson beneath an overturned table. There was so much blood that I initially thought he was dead. Somehow this kid survived a beating that most grown men would not have.

The doctors were devastated by his injuries, but they believe he’ll make a full recovery. One doctor told me that he was going to call social services. I stepped in. I can’t let Jackson be taken away. He would be lost to me if he went into the system. He’s my last connection to her. I told them I would handle it, but I didn’t make any calls.

July 15, 1995- Jackson has been living with us on and off for a year. Every time Ted goes ballistic, Jackson ends up in the hospital. I’ll admit that kid is tough as nails. Ted is as violent as they get. I feel a certain measure of guilt as an officer of the law that I’m allowing such brutality to occur to a child, but then I take one look at his baby face, and all I see is Melody. There is a small sick part of me that hopes maybe one time he won’t make it through one of Ted’s beatings. He is my curse, my ball and chain, my obsession. Every time he gets out of the hospital, he comes home to live with us. And when he heals, he starts to ask to return to Ted repeatedly. Like a broken record until we give in. It’s our sick pattern, and we are stuck in it.

December 12, 1995- Irene has accepted that Jackson is here to stay. She is dutiful in feeding him and giving him all the necessities of life that I know he isn’t getting from Ted, but that is all she gives him. She has no emotion, no feeling, no care in her heart for Jackson. All her love she lavishes on Matt. She doesn’t even look at Jackson.

Irene either ignores Jackson, or she criticizes him. “Jackson, learn to be nice. Why can’t you be nice like Matt? You’re not a nice boy.” “Jackson you’re so bad. You will be completely unlovable if you don’t start being a better boy.” “Jackson, I don’t even know why we bother with you.”

Jackson watches Irene and sometimes myself with those eyes - those eyes that drive me crazy - but he never reacts. He takes what is given to him, and he asks for nothing more.

He displays none of the typical emotions of a child. He never cries. He never gets mad. He never shows frustration or impatience or fear. I hear him laughing with Matt, but around Irene or me he is just silent and impermeable.

CHAPTER 19

Holy shit.I put the journal down. Was Jackson Harry’s son? That meant that Jackson was Matt’s half-brother. This is why Harry had brought Jackson to live with them. My mind was blown away by what I had just read.

“Emily,” Jackson’s voice sounded from downstairs. I startled in shock, horrified that I was sitting on the bed, reading this private journal. I scrambled to put the journal back in the envelope, and then I dropped it back in the bottom of the box. With haste, I started to fold the clothes and shove them back in the box. I could hear Jackson coming up the stairs. He would know that I had been through this box. His packing was immaculate.

Doing the only thing I could think of, I picked up the box and dumped everything back on the bed just as he appeared at the door.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice sharp.

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