The Way Back: Chapter 31

Several days passed, and at the end of a week, Todd had continued with his therapy almost every day.   "I think I'm ready to talk to the kids about it.  Maybe not every detail, just enough help them understand."

"Are you sure about this?"  Blair asked.  It had been an uneventful few days.  With the exception of a brief nightmare, Todd had not had any episodes or disturbing incidents.  "Things have been going smoothly."

"They have, and it's because I'm facing it all.  Working with Ray has really gotten me somewhere.  It's only been a few days, and I'm not perfect, but it's definitely helping.  Will you be there when I talk with them?"

"Of course," she said, sliding both her hands around his back and up to his shoulders, and hugging him close.  "I will always be here."

In calling the kids to the living room, he paced a bit, thinking to himself how it would be best to broach the subject.  Blair watched him, and then said, "They love you, Todd.  It will come on it's own."

He turned to her, and saw them descending the stairs.  Starr said, "You called us, Dad?"

Jack said, "Is everything all right?"

"Everything is fine, kids.  I wanted to talk to you both.  I think you deserve to know everything that you want to know about my life and about me."  Everyone sat down.  Todd had made a fire, and it crackled, warming the area.  Lights were dimmed, the evening was setting in.  He sat by Blair on the couch, in reach of her hand, and the kids sat in the two arm chairs.  He started, "Things are getting better for me.  I'm feeling stronger.  But if during our talk, I feel uncomfortable, I'm going to stop, is that all right with everyone?"

All agreed.  Starr held a pillow over her lap and absently hugged it.  "I just want you to be all right, Dad.  I want Hope to come and spend time with you and get to know you the way I do.  And Sam, he misses us and Mom, and you're his best friend."

"Yeah, that's all I hear, Spiderman, Spiderman.  The kid has it bad for ya." Jack added.

Todd smiled, and responded.  "I love them both.  Very much."  He looked at Blair.  You're all so important to me.  Now, what do you want to know?  Think of things that really stay on your mind and bother you, or things that nag you to get the answers for.  I know how that is, and I don't want my kids feeling that way."

Starr spoke first, "I just want to know you're going to be all right.  To be honest, I want to know that this time, you're forever, Dad.  That you won't leave us again.  I know you didn't choose this last disappearance, but before, you left us a lot."  She choked up.

He blinked back tears, and began.  "In my heart, this is forever, Starr.  I never want to be away from my family again.  I never want to be out of hand's reach of your mother again.  I am not perfect, and I will make more mistakes, I am sure, but I plan on being here and loving you all and protecting you all, as long as I am breathing."

Blair sighed.  Her love for him was immeasurable.  She reached for his hand and linked fingers with his.  "We're going to make this work.  We've been apart too long."

Todd said, "I'm sorry for the times I did leave you.  I didn't leave you, I was running from myself.  I am sorry for that.  This time, I want to face it all.  Jack, you have been awfully quiet so far."

"My questions are different.  I don't think you're going to want to answer them."

"Try me, buddy."

"All right.  First, are you my father, yes or no?  I don't want any lies, I don't want you to tell me you are and then later, I find out you're not.  If you say you are right now, it had better be the truth because I will never speak to you or give you any chances for anything, ever, if it is a lie, no matter what you have been through."

"I am your father, Jack.  I was a stupid, selfish, self-loathing man when I met you, but I know one thing, you were a beautiful baby.  The most beautiful newborn I had ever seen.  I loved you the very first second, but my own selfishness and fear got in the way.  I am very sorry," his voice cracked, "for giving you away.  I did everything possible to get you back, but I know it's not enough."

Jack surprised them all, "You already apologized for that.  I'm over it, I guess. It's not like I knew any different.  Things change, you screwed up.  I've screwed up before, and I wouldn't want anyone holding it over my head forever."

He breathed out, "Okay.  Then, what else?"

"About those marks on your wrists?  I mean, exactly how, and why did you get them, not just the short answer.  Did you do something bad, or what?"

Todd swallowed.  He and Ray had discussed this question at length, since Jack had asked it before, and was silenced by the answer, Todd knew it would come up again.  The kid was naturally curious about what had happened to his father.  He knew it was Jack's way of understanding him to understand his pain.  "As I said before, I was electrocuted.  I've done bad things, but not to them.  They just wanted me to talk and give them information, so they strapped me to a chair, and put bands on my wrists and ankles, and shot volts of electricity through me.  They'd do enough to hurt but not kill.  When that happens, you get burned where the current goes in."

Jack thought a moment, and looked horrified.  "How did you live through that?"

Todd paused.  "I don't know.  I just kept repeating everything I knew about you, your sister and your mom over and over.  Does that answer your question?"

Jack responded, "Yeah.  I'm just...I'm sorry they did that to you."

"Me too.  Don't worry, I'm going to be all right."  He took a breath.  "Okay, what else?"

Jack waited.  Starr said nothing, but was twisting the pillow tassels nervously.  He continued, "Why did you have that lighter in your hand the other night?  What does it mean?"

Blair started, "Jack, maybe you shouldn't..."

"No, Blair, " Todd interrupted, "it's time.  It's been years that I've held on to these things.  It's time to let them go.  Both of you kids are old enough to understand even terrible things that people do.  And in order to get well, I have to face these things.  This I've learned from my therapist and your mother.  We've talked a lot about the lighter and what it means and who it represents.  And, I have to deal with it.  It's part of me.  The lighter belonged to my adoptive father, Peter Manning."

Tell him the truth, Todd.  Tell Blair everything, tell the kids everything.  Once you've said it, over and over, you will be closer to being free of it.

"Dad, you don't have to..."  Starr began.

"I know Shorty, I know I don't have to.  And the same goes for you, or anyone else in the room.  You don't have to listen or hear.  You all have to promise not to tell Little Sam, though, he's not ready to hear these things.  He's just an innocent kid."  Todd swallowed.  It was getting difficult.  He could feel his heart racing, and he gripped Blair's hand for strength.  He held the darkness at bay.

Blair finally found her voice.  "Do you want to tell us?"  She remembered Ray's words from the time she spent in session with them.

Todd was a different man; he wanted nothing more than to have them all back, wholly, and be whole himself.  That necessitated therapy, and he had gone forward with it, without hesitation, to get his life back.  This was the starting point. "Yes.  Yes I do.  Peter Manning was my adoptive father.  He didn't want me, my adoptive mom did.  He abused her until she left us."

Starr's mouth hung open, "She left you?  She left you with him?  How old were you?"

Todd's mouth was dry, and Blair picked up on it, getting up momentarily to get him a glass of water from the bar.  He drank it, and then turned back to the discussion.  "I was nine."  Starr pictured herself when she was nine, and what it would have been like to be left with an abusive parent.  She couldn't bring herself to imagine life that way for her father.  "Shorty, you don't have to..."

"If you lived it, I can hear it."  She said, and tears began to fall.

He continued, "He didn't want me.  She left us, and married someone else.  I lived with him until I was in college.  He used the lighter to..."  Blair found her hand going to his hair, and she smoothed it.  "He used the lighter to torture me.  It was a game he played."

Starr was gripping the pillow with all her might, and tears were falling onto it and onto her chest.  Jack was silent, stolid, listening and not moving.

Todd added, "He wanted to see how long I could hold my hand over the flame.  That night you found me, I was imagining that one of my torturers from the last eight years was here.  He used to talk like Peter Manning, and use the lighter, and make me remember other terrible things, and who knows what else he did to me.  I say that because usually, I'd go inside myself, like I did that night you all found me, to get away from it and not face it."

The unspoken question was hanging in the air.  Todd himself was tired.  He was sweating, and attempting to remain calm.  But, he noted, he was not seeing blackness, or trying to escape.  This made him want to push further.  "Are you willing to hear the rest?"

Jack sat up, "there's more?"

"A little more.  Peter Manning was a sick and cruel man.  He beat me, he burned me, and..."  He looked to Blair for a moment.  In her eyes he saw something he was not expecting to see.  It was not hate or disgust at what he had been through, or doubt in who he was, or pity, or anything but admiration.  She was proud of him.  What he saw in her face was pride.  He smoothed her hand with his, and looked up.  "He abused me, often, I ran away a lot.  When I was a teenager, he got really bad, seemed like he hated me more.  He continued to beat and burn me, and when I was fourteen, he..." he paused.  He stopped, and the room was silent like dawn.  He took a large, audible breath and said, "When I was fourteen, he raped me," and his voice broke and he looked down, with shame.

Starr burst open with tears and ran to her father.  She threw her arms around his neck.  "No, Dad!  No!  I'm so sorry."

Jack had slumped in the chair, and tears were running down his cheeks.  Todd pulled back from Starr and wiped his brow and face with the back of his sleeve.  He looked to his son, "Jack, it's all right.  I'm going to be okay.  I'm still here. I'm still living.  I was able to move forward, meet your mother, fall in love with her and make you two."

Jack could not move, and didn't respond.  Instead, Blair latched on to Starr and they sat hugging each other and consoling.  Todd got up and went to his son, and jerking him by the arm, pulled him to his chest and hugged him.  "It's going to be okay.  Now, you might understand me a little more, and the terrible things I've done.  There are no excuses, just understanding.  That's what I hope for."

Jack found words, as the embrace ended.  "I do, and I think you paid for them all.  You paid a lot.  I never paid for what I did,"  he was still crying.

"And you're scared you will, like karma or something?  Maybe, maybe not.  But I'll tell you one thing, that man that got you off for this was not your father.  If he loved you, he would have helped you to accept responsibility and face what you'd done and been through.  If someone had done that for me, things may have been different.  So, tell me, Son, what did you do?"  He put his hand on Jack's shoulder, steady, strong.  "Tell me."

Jack told his father his mistakes, and the largest being his part in the death of Shane Morasco's mother.  Then he sobbed, as Todd held him, and Starr and Blair circled around, hands on their shoulders.  Finally, Jack gathered himself, saying, "I'm sorry for what I did.  I didn't mean to make her die."

"We know you didn't,"  Blair said, also crying.

The next moment, Jack lifted his hand to move his hair back, and Todd saw it.  "Oh God."

"What, Todd, what is it?  Breathe deep, remember?"

"It's not that, it's that ring.  That ring you have Jack, where did you get that?"

Jack almost forgot his tears, "The other guy gave it to me.  It's is a copy of his.  The one he has was my grandfather's."

He looked at Blair, "Blair, that's the family ring.  That's what they wanted.  I remember."  He looked into her face, "I remember.  That's it.  There's something in Victor's ring, something I put there.  Something they want."

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