After the Thorns Chapter 07
Dad froze, but still tried to argue in a faltering voice.
“You’re brothers. Blood ties don’t disappear just because you’re angry. You can’t truly send your own brother to prison.
“Mason was sickly as a child, and raising him was difficult. I can’t stand by while he destroys his future.”
Exhausted, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, no attachment remained.
“I’ll say this one final time. Mason must answer for what he did.
“Instead of begging me, hire him a competent defense attorney.”
My words extinguished their final hope.
Dad collapsed into a chair, his eyes empty.
Mom stopped wailing and stared blankly at the soup on the floor, seeming to agé ten years at once.
At that moment, someone knocked softly on the hospital-room door.
A young military police officer entered.
“Cadet Reckitt, a woman outside would like to see you. She says her name is Vanessa Hale.”
The sound of her name made my stomach twist.
My parents reacted as though they had been handed a lifeline.
“Vanessa? Vanessa is here!
“Let her in. She can persuade you!”
I looked at their desperate faces and felt only cold disgust.
“No.”
I rejected her without hesitation. “Tell her to leave.”
The officer nodded and went back out.
Silence returned to the room.
My parents appeared ready to continue, but the finality in my eyes reduced them to weak sighs.
They understood that this time they had truly lost me.
Half an hour later, the officer returned carrying a small jewelry box.
“Cadet Reckitt, Ms. Hale refuses to leave. She insisted I give you this.
“She said it’s something she owes you.”
I opened the box and found a ring inside.
It was not the one I had given her, but a simpler and cheaper silver band.
A handwritten note lay beneath it in Vanessa’s familiar script, each line crueler than the last.
“Julian, I’m sorry. I really did sell the original ring.
“I bought this one with my own money. Consider the debt repaid.
“Please spare Mason. My child can’t grow up without a father.”
I looked at the cold ring and then at the parents still hoping I would change my mind, and the absurdity almost made me laugh.
She believed a cheap replacement could buy back three years of my life, erase a false conviction, restore my dignity, and repair a love she had shattered.
I carried the ring to the window and threw it as far as I could.
Then I turned and gave my stunned parents a final warning.
“You have five minutes to disappear from my sight.
“Otherwise, I’ll have the military police remove you for disrupting a protected hospital unit.”
This time they did not dare remain. Supporting each other, they stumbled out of the room as though something were chasing them.
At last, the world was quiet.
I settled back against the pillows and pushed every tangled thought from my mind.
The only thing I needed to do now was heal.
