Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter Thirty Nine

Danny....

Watching Nathan help my father to slowly walk up the garden path towards the front door, my stomach tenses at the sorry sight of him. Now needing a stick to walk with, he has aged in the months I have been gone. His dark hair has greyed more around his temples. His face is creased with deeper wrinkles across his forehead and his slightly hollowed out cheeks. He no longer seems to look like the intimidating figure he has always so respectfully been. And even though he has aged, even though he now needs a walking stick to aid himself as he puts one weak foot in front of the other, as soon as he sees me, he smiles. It's a smile I remember. A smile he always had when my mother was alive. So, my mouth involuntarily lifts into a smile as well.

With my brother by his side, dad slowly makes the small step by the front door. With a small huff, he becomes determined to stand all on his own now we are face to face. "I can't tell you how good it is to see you, son." Then he reaches out for me to hug him.

Feeling so many things inside of myself, I earnestly do hug my father back. "It's good to see you, too." Comes my honest reply. As strange as this all is, it really does feel good to see him.

Dad stands back, wanting to get a good look at me. "All things considered, you don't look half bad." He then pats both of my shoulders, in an enthusiastic and fatherly way. "You're my boy, Danny. You've been a really stupid boy, but you're still my boy." He then looks at Nathan, proud for us all to be back together again.

Guiding my dad into the living room, I am still feeling a little detached from all that is happening. First Nathan shows up, now I have my father here in front of me. "Do you both want a drink?" I ask, kind of just needing something to distract me from all the emotions that I am currently being flooded with.

Dad shakes his head with a weary smile. "I just need you to pack, son. We can all have lunch somewhere on the way back home."

Making myself stand taller, I find myself reacting to what dad has just unexpectedly said. "Like I told Nathan earlier, I'm not coming back, Dad."

My father stares back at me with an incredulous frown. "Why not?" He begins shifting in his seat, looking agitated. "We haven't come all this way to not take you back with us, Danny." His voice isn't raised, he's just weakly flummoxed.

Realising that I am now dealing with a man who is recovering from a minor stroke, I don't wish to upset him anymore than I already have. "Dad, things have changed. I have changed. It's time for me to stand on my own two feet. You used to control almost every aspect of my life, I don't want that anymore. I can't go back to you treating me that way. I'm a man, it's about time I started acting like one."

Dad lifts his chin high, blinking like he's processing my response to his request of returning home. Eventually, he quietly asks. "What do you want me to do, Danny?"

Shrugging, I then shake my head. "The business, my money, my car, my mobile, my home...it was all controlled by you." I just verbally throw that at him, by way of an explanation of why I don't want to return to all of it again.

Tapping the bottom of his walking stick on the carpet of the living room, dad sighs. "Just like Nathan is now in full control of the London branch, I will give you full control of the Hemel Hempstead branch. You'll have your own money. You'll be responsible for your own car. I will even help you buy a place to live all by yourself, if that is what you really want? I just want you home, Danny. We have both been incredibly stupid. But, your beautiful mother always believed that even the best of people could make the worst of mistakes. She believed that it was those people who would always learn from those mistakes. And we are such people, Danny...we have learnt from our mistakes." His light brown eyes are fixed on me, fixed and determined. "Let's just start again, son?" He now smiles, with the smile that always reminds me of the happier times when he was with my mother.