Those Hollow Lies

Closure I

08/14/09 – lunch time.

It felt weird to be coming back home after all this time. Once he was released from the safe house my dad had mumbled about the state of the yard and that was all he had said before climbing out of the car and acting like his son hadn’t just drove him home. There had been a lot of paperwork and questions to get through recently, and it was only now that I really felt ready to come home and make amends with the man who had raised me for eighteen years.

Standing outside the house it still looked exactly the same as it had done when I was just a boy. I felt like a completely different man after these last few months, but the street, the house and even the father inside were still exactly the same as they had always been as far as I could see.

“Are you going to hover there all day or do you plan on coming in for coffee?” Snapping out of my thoughts I saw my dad standing on the porch step, his arms folded across his chest and his expression less than pleased to see me.

Without saying anything I made my way up the drive and through the front door that he left open. He was in the kitchen, turning the kettle on and fussing with some pasta for his lunch. He barely raised his gaze to look at me as I lingered in the doorway. I felt uncomfortable and this was my childhood home!

“Isn’t she with you?”

“Roz? No, she’s not.”

Roz had been different since she returned that day. We had all been busy getting through everything that was necessary since we wrapped things up in Washington, but it felt almost as though Roz was pulling away from me and I didn’t like it or want it. I tried talking to her but there was always someone around to interrupt or she always had someplace to be or something to do. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that at the best of times she was trying to avoid me. I had thought that coming home and talking to my dad might help me gain some perspective on the situation with Roz, but now I wasn’t so sure.

“So, why are you here then?”

“I wanted to talk to you, dad.”

“Come to drag me off and lock me away again?” He struggled with the lid of the jar of pasta sauce and only grumbled more when I managed to take it from him and pop it off without any effort. Usually there would be a joke in there about how he had loosened it first, but he said nothing.

“Of course not. Dad, I did that for your own protection. Bethany threatened to hurt you when she captured me and if you hadn’t been in that safe house then she would have done. She hurt plenty of other people that she wouldn’t have thought twice about hurting you.”

“And you don’t think you hurt me by choosing that murderess over me?”

“I didn’t choose anyone over anyone. I did what was necessary.” I sighed, running my fingers through my hair as my dad glared hard at me.

“How many people have you killed, Russell?”

“Only the one you already know about! Dad, I’m not a killer.”

“If you stay with that girl you’ll become one. It’s only a matter of time before some mission or job causes you to kill again, and then it’ll happen again.” It’s not something you can avoid, Russell, even if you want to.” I knew my dad was right, but I had no idea what I was planning on doing now that Joe was safe and that his name had been cleared.

“And what if I don’t carry on? What if I go back to living a normal life?”

My dad turned to look at me with narrowed eyes, almost as if he was trying to read my thoughts and decipher what I meant. “Is that what you want, son?”