Failings of the Fathers: 75

"Momma?"  Todd said.  "Momma, you spoke?"

She seemed distant, staring down at Peter.  She slowly raised her face, and looked at her son.  "Are you okay?" she asked.

He swallowed, and tears stung his eyes.  "Yeah, I'm . . . I'm fine, Momma."

"Let me take the baby," she said, and leaned down to take Ray.  He had been falling asleep against Todd, and as she picked him up, he rested his head on her shoulder and went into dreamland.

Blair said, "You're bleeding, bad, Todd."

"I'm okay," he said.  She wasn't happy with his pallor and sweat-shined face.  He had been propped up a little to hold his son, but now fell back to the floor.  She caught his head and rested it on her knee. "I like you taking care of me," he said.

"I like doing it," she answered.  "But I'm worried about the blood loss, and you . . . you look pale, Todd."

"I'm going to be okay," he said.

"Just keep looking at me, okay?  Don't go anywhere," she said, one hand depressing a piece of her blouse onto his wound, and the other reaching for her cell.  He winced under the pressure of her fingers against his shoulder.

"Where am I going?" he asked, dreamily.  His eyes fluttered, and his gaze went to the ceiling.

"Nowhere, Todd, now, stay with me," she pleaded.

His eyes closed.

***

"Ah, Jack," the nun said, as Jack appeared outside his brother's door.  "Ya just caught us saying some prayers."

"Hi Sister.  Hey, Runty, ya gotta go and get your homework done,  Grandma Addie said."

"I don't like homework anymore," Sam said.

"Why?"

"Dad's not here to help me.  He always does."  Sam said, as he unenthusiastically headed out the door.

Jack watched him go and then turned back to the nun.  "He's all messed up."

"Yes, I'd say he is.  For now."

"It's . . . a shitty thing for a guy to do to his brother."

"First, what did I tell ya about y'ar language, young man?  And second, what did ya do?"

He fidgeted.  "I caused all this."

"Ya didn't.  I know that."

"I did.  If I were home, if I was there . . ."

"Then what?  Ya would have miraculously faced off with a bloody gun?  No, Lad, ya just may have made things worse, and cost y'arself y'ar life."

"Maybe, but he has Ray."

"He does.  But not for long.  Ya know y'ar parents are not going to leave Chicago without their babby."

He walked in and sat next to her.  "What if something happens?  What if Jewel has to grow up without Dad, the way I did?"

"Laddy, the only thing ya can do is pray.  And wait.  But ya can't take on the blame."

"I can.  I was supposed to stay with Starr.  I was supposed to help babysit.  She had three kids to watch, how could she fight him off?  If I was there, we might have had a chance."

"I don't think ya will ever know that.  It's best to move on, and try to make sense of it another way."

"What other way?"

"Y'ar mother, how she would have been if ya died.  Ya know how y'ar father's father was.  He would be abusive to ya, as he was to Starr.  He may have killed ya, then what would y'ar parents have done?"

He didn't answer.  He just sat, thinking.  "I don't know."

"It's going to work out, just have faith, Lad."  

*** 

Without warning, the sound of the cellar doors banging against the house startled Blair to look away from her husband's still body for a moment.  She looked up, and to her surprise and also relief was John McBain, shouting, "Freeze, police!" holding a gun in front of himself and cradling it with his second hand.  She could see a man behind him she'd never seen before, and then Timothy, who's expression went from determined to devastated as he lowered his gun.

She said, "He's dying," causing Timothy to come to life.  The older man raced to her side while fumbling with the pistol as he put it into the back waistband of his pants.  He crouched next to her.  "What happened, Bridgette?"

"He got shot, trying to save us."  She collapsed into tears.  John also made his way to them while calling for an ambulance, and the stranger, who seemed concerned as well, did the same.  

The unknown man said, "Excuse me, why don't you come over here with me, and let's take a look at you and the baby?"

"No, I can't leave him.  I won't do that again," she said, remembering her promises to him from the day he set foot back into her life.  

"Must be Blair," Ribsky said to himself.  "And one of his sons."

Timothy looked defeated and suddenly very old.  John was putting pressure on the wound, having taken that position from Blair.  Her hands were covered in Todd's blood, and there was a smear of it on her cheek.  She realized he had put it there when he touched her face before he passed out.  She could tell the stranger was going into "sympathy" mode.

He's not dead.   You're wrong.  You're so very wrong.

Bitsy was crying, her tears were silent.  She stared down at her son and watched as his blood oozed onto the cellar floor.  Peter's body had done the same, but differently.  He was dead, and she was positive of that fact.  There was barely nothing left to the back of his head.

Within a few minutes, Todd slowly revived, responding to the pain in his shoulder provided by John as he depressed the wound.  His cry startled Blair but also relieved her.  She looked into his face and turned it to hers with her hand.  "It's all right.  I'm here.  It's okay.  Ray's fine."

"Momma . . . talked," he said, and John turned toward the woman for a moment.  

"Yes, she did," Blair said.  At this point, Bitsy was nothing more than a shell.  She stood, silently, and watched her son struggle for life.  She seemed in a dream, except for the fact that she held sleeping Ray on her shoulder.

"I . . . I'm tired, Blair."  Todd said.

"No, no, you're not.  You're not tired, you're here with me, with Ray.  You're staying with us."

"I feel . . . tired.  I can't . . . stay awake."

"No, Todd!  Stay with us, please?"

He faded.  She crumpled against John's shoulder.  He continued to work on Todd until the paramedics came through the cellar doors, pushing a spray of early evening light into the room again.

At this, John stood and pulled Blair with him, back and away from Todd.  Timothy, who hadn't said much, stood alongside her as well, and she fell into his arms.  "Please, don't let him die.  I can't live if he's gone."  

Ribsky swallowed, trying to take in the truth of the scene.  John went back to Todd as Timothy took Blair to his chest.

The older man didn't answer.  Everything he had experienced within the last few weeks was flooding back.  He'd lost one son.  He couldn't . . .

"He's not dead, he's going to make it," announced Jack Ribsky, who Blair still didn't know.  The medics carried Todd, on a stretcher, out through the cellar doors, and Jack approached them.  "He bled a lot, but don't be alarmed.  He's going to be fine."

Ribsky turned his attention to the carcass and Bitsy, standing by it.  "Who's this woman?"

"That's Todd's mother."  Blair said.

Ribsky seemed concerned again, as his eyebrows furrowed.  He looked around the room, and surveyed it, for the first time since he had gotten there.  He walked toward the paneled wall.  "What is this place?"

"This," Blair said, still crying, "is my husband's torture chamber of a long ago past.  I have to go, John, I have to be with him," she said, attempting to break free of Timothy.

"I'll bring ya, Bridgette, let's go," Timothy said, as Blair took her son from Bitsy, who made no protest or eye contact, and walked out hurriedly.  Bitsy made no move to go with them or to react. 

John looked at Ribsky.  "Should we check the rest of the house?"

"What about her?"  Ribsky said.  

John noticed that the woman was unnaturally still.  He walked to her, "Mrs. Manning?  Hey, Mrs. Manning?  Can you look at me?"

She didn't respond or raise her eyes.  Her view was fixed on the place where Todd was just lying in his own blood on the floor.  John walked past her, still not noticing the injury to her head which was camouflaged by her hair.  He was followed by Ribsky, and spied the secret door in the paneled wall.  "I think I know what this is about," John said, searching his memory.

Jack Ribsky said, "Yeah?  Well you should share it with me, then, because I have no idea.  What the fuck is this place?"

John pulled the small door open, and the two of them ducked and walked inside.

Bitsy was still behind them, now staring down at Peter.  John and Jack went into the room, and the older man pulled the chain on the single light in the ceiling.  John, looking around, said, "Blair was right.  This is a torture chamber."

Jack walked to the closet, and opening it, reached up and moved the chains.  "Ceiling cuffs," he said, "nasty stuff."

Bitsy had wandered in behind them, and when she entered the room, she looked around her, an expression of horror on her face.  She closed her eyes and then screamed, falling toward the ground.  John instinctively had moved toward her and caught her in his arms before she hit the cellar floor.  "My God," he said aloud.  

Jack Ribsky said, "Let's get her out of here."

"Not soon enough," John answered, and as she fell back, her head tipped, and her hair cascaded back, revealing the gash in her forehead.

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