unbroken (unexpected series)

Chapter 25

A/N: NOT EDITED - enjoy everyone :)

Chapter 25 – Pat Lawson POV

‘Norine – I – I don’t understand, why are you insisting on a home birth? What if – what if something goes wrong? Or we need help?’ I asked her, desperately one last time, knowing that our daughter could be born at any time. ‘We will have the mid-wife here with us in case that happens, women have been giving birth this way for centuries Pat,’ she wrote me off once again, smiling, happy rubbing her swollen belly.

Nodding unconvinced but wanting to keep her calm and happy, ‘I just don’t want anything to happen to our little girl,’ the honest truth pouring out, I wanted to be her daddy, I wasn’t afraid of fatherhood, but I was afraid of something happening during the birth. Three days later Oakley Savanna Lawson was born, at home, healthy safe and loved. I held the picture of me, holding her for the first time in my hands, shaking uncontrollably; I could remember that day perfectly. I was younger – still in my twenties – but I knew the minute I held that little girl – my little girl – that I was born, lived, suffered and made mistakes, just so I could make it to that very moment.

I had vowed to protect Norine above all else and for ten years I had failed to do that, but when I held Oakley when she was born, I had made promises as her father, to protect her, keep her safe from as many dangers as I could. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror, I couldn’t fathom the truth at the father that I had become, the father she died knowing I was – one that didn’t care for her. I had stopped showing her the day I thought Norine left, after the fact, now I could see it from her perspective, and it tore away at me endlessly. To know she could remember things from age three at thirteen years old, I wondered if she compared the father I was to the one she had to grow up with? I gazed at the man I was before, wondering if I had become the father she needed to Amelia, and just how painful it must have been for her to watch me love someone else, when she didn’t think I loved her?

“Patrick,” my father knocked softly calling my name, his voice hoarse, another family member that I have to face, knowing they had all told me to put Oakley first. My father welcomed Norine, and when I brought Sarah, he welcomed her as well, but he told me I should put my children first, be their father.

“I still think you should come… this’ll help – I know what you’re going through, but attending today, maybe it’ll help you grieve,” he said in his gruff voice, sad with his own grief that I heard so much as a child, even now a man on my own, “Saying goodbye in this way… it’ll make things easier.”

“I don’t want it to help dad, I – I don’t deserve help or for things to be easier. You guys are all tiptoeing around my feelings but why don’t we all just face the truth? We should all be here, laughing enjoying ourselves dad, but I’m the reason we’re burying our children today, Grant is dead, gone because of me. It was all too late. They were supposed to me here, spending a happy thanksgiving with their family, we – everything was planned, I was going to ask Sarah to leave dad. To take Amelia and go stay with family while I dealt with Oakley, because I saw all my wrongs, I just didn’t want to hurt Sarah,” I laugh mechanically, my eyes well up, I stand waving my arms, the picture frame I head makes contact with the wall, shattering, glass tinkling as it falls on the wooden floor.

Our whole family around, the kitchen, the den, the living room, all dressed ready to go, listening but pretending they aren’t, “I didn’t put her first dad… do you know who I put first, Sarah and why? Because she’s pregnant,” I said with utter disdain, a child coming into this world but Oakley and Ben out of it. “She’s older, it’s a high risk pregnancy, but – but that’s why Oakley tried to kill herself, I knew – she saw the test. We were just waiting, not approaching her – giving her time. But the thought of me having a child with Sarah, everything – dad I did so much wrong and I can’t make it right-t-t-t,” I cried my heart aching.