Page 83 of Like Fathers, Like Son
“I can’t believe he didn’t. I bet his damn dads know though, because those smug bastards have been grinning all night. Typical.”
“What’s it like… being a three… uh, like three of you?”
Wilma found some biscuits in the cupboard and pushed them at me.
“As weird as you could imagine. It’s not something I consciously chose, but at the same time, I can’t imagine life without either of them. They drive me crazy sometimes, but I love them.”
I picked up a biscuit and stared at it.
“Theyarecrazy though, right? I mean, aren’t we all? You chose to stay with two men who kidnapped and raped you, both murderers, and your son grew up to be all of those things and more. I mean, I should be running like hell so he can never find me.”
Wilma looked worried, abandoning her tea-making to reach over and lift my chin with a gentle touch.
“Is that something you’re considering, Anneka? Running again?”
I pulled away from her touch, breaking the biscuit in two and eating half while I pondered her question. Was I? Wasn’t I? Why wasn’t I?
“No, I don’t think I am. Blaze is insane, and dangerous, but he’s also sweet and protective, and strangely we do have things in common despite all of that. He’s… he’s cruel sometimes, unnecessarily rough, and, god I don’t know. There’s something about him that makes me want to try. Besides, he found me before, and I wasn’t carrying his baby then, or at least he didn’t know about it. If he was that obsessive before, now he’d be even more so. Right?”
Wilma nodded, finishing making the cup of tea for me. I thanked her as she set it in front of me.
“Blaze is highly intelligent, like off the charts kind of intelligent, but it means he’s aware of so much that we overlook or miss. He sees things almost on another level sometimes. He was a challenging child to raise, because he was smarter than us so early on, that I wasn’t sure who the parent was sometimes. He’s good, though, deep inside where it counts.”
“I know he’s very protective of his loved ones, particularly his sister.” Wilma’s face dropped, and I suddenly wondered if she blamed me too. After all, Blaze had been intent on making me pay for what had happened to Ember, and if he’d been that sure, then they probably had all thought that.
“You know I never had anything to do with that, right? I never bullied anyone, and if I’d known, I’d have tried to stop them.”
She nodded, taking her seat again so she sat beside me, once more cradling her coffee.
“Despite our best intentions, and our stupid youthful declarations that we’d do better than our own parents, I know we failed them in so many ways. Blaze was always so self-reliant that we let him do his own thing from so young, but I know it may have affected his ideals and beliefs, as well as knowing what he knows about how we met. Ember was different. She was always sweet and naïve, and that made her an easy target. Ash and the twins were protected from what she went through, but they all suffered when child services took them from us. That took too long to resolve, and it was devastating for all of us.”
I hadn’t even known about that!Had Blaze ever mentioned it? Had he told me, and I’d just not absorbed what he was saying? Either way, I didn’t think she really wanted me to question her about it. I didn’t think I knew her well enough to even try.
“I’m sorry that all happened, and if I could have prevented it, I would have. I know Blaze got his revenge, but…” I trailed off, suddenly wondering if I was telling her things Blaze had chosen to keep from her. It was a minefield, because I knew so little, and the things I knew probably weren’t for his parents’ ears, especially his mother.
She waved a hand at me. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen the damn tattoo, and I get it. I recognised their names. I know they died, and they deserved it. I suppose that seems hypocritical to you, since you feel I support Blaze’s actions with you?”
“You do, though, don’t you… you feel like somehow, because what they did to you led to love, that it’s some kind of magic formula. What if there was just something really wrong with you, that you didn’t try to escape them?”
The moment I’d finished speaking, I covered my mouth with one hand, horrified that I’d just been so rude and judgemental to the woman who may just end up being my ‘mother-in-law’.
She laughed softly. “I wondered all of those things back then, and I still do sometimes. None of us had the best upbringing, but that’s not an excuse for what they did. The thing is, whether I wanted to admit to it or not, there was something about them that spoke to something in me. You know that what all of us really wanted was someone to love us, to actually care that we even existed. To notice us. To see us for who we are. And yeah, I get that we seem like some kind of deviant freaks to you, but like recognises like. Our souls were always meant to be connected, and we’re happy. We love each other and we’re happy every day. Our children were raised with all the love we had to give, which turned out to be a lot. We wanted them to have all the things we didn’t, but not just material things; our time, our attention, our respect. Was it so wrong to find something beautiful out of the darkness?”
49
Blaze
Itwaskindahardsaying goodbye to the old guy, after living there so briefly with him. I insisted on paying him several months extra rent as an apology, because the guy needed the help, but I also found myself promising to stop by for coffee soon.
I had a feeling it wasn’t just going to be the once, either. He was like a grandfather, and I’d never had one of those. I’d never met any of my parents’ parents.
Obviously it would have been impossible with dad Gray, but my other two parents had no relationship with their own parents, and liked it that way. I sometimes wondered if that meant we’d missed out on something special, and before I met old Seth, I probably would have said no, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“You take care of that nice girl of yours, son. Maybe bring her to visit?”
I grinned, looping my bag over my shoulder, and reaching over with one arm to hug him.
“Count on it, old git. I still need to whoop your ass at chess anyway. Not sure how you always beat me, but I’ll figure it out.” It was the weirdest thing, because nobody could ever beat me at strategy games, but somehow he always did. I actually really enjoyed the challenge.
