Miranda James - Classified as Murder

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. The truth of what he said hit me hard. I had waited for him to call me. I hardly ever called him, except on his birthday. Why not? Not wanting to bother him when I knew he was busy with work?

Suddenly that seemed like a thin excuse.

Sean moved closer to the table. His hands gripped the back of a chair as if he needed support to continue standing. “And when I did call, and I tried to talk to you about something serious, you’d mouth some platitude and tell me everything would be fine. You never listened, so I finally gave up. After that when I called, we talked about stupid things like your damn cat and the latest funny thing he’d done.”

“Sean, I’m so sorry.” I was furious with myself for what I had done to my son. I knew exactly what happened, and why.

And now I had to explain it to my son and pray that he would understand and forgive me.

“You’re right,” I told him. “I didn’t listen. I let you down when you needed me. I can’t excuse myself. All I can do is tell you what I’ve come to understand about the years since your mother died.”

Sean’s face darkened at the mention of his mother. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath to steady myself. “While your mother was so ill, all I could focus on was her. Then Aunt Dottie died not long after, and that hit me really hard, too. I suppose the pain of those two deaths made me turn inward, away from everyone else, even my own son and daughter.” I paused for another breath. “Then I moved back here and found a kitten in the parking lot of the public library.

“From that point on I focused all my attention on Diesel, and he rewarded me with loving companionship. I guess you could say I cocooned myself in a quiet little world of routine. I had my job and my volunteer work, and I didn’t let much else intrude.”

Sean didn’t say anything. He stared at me.

“The murder last fall shook me out of my little safe world. I began to recognize my selfishness and what I’d let happen, but I never realized the extent of the hurt I caused.”

I waited for a response but Sean just kept staring at me.

“Can you try to understand and forgive me?” I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Had I damaged my relationship with my son beyond repair?

“We were all hurting, Dad.” Sean’s voice was hoarse. “Laura and I were devastated. Losing Mom was unimaginable.” He paused to take a shaky breath. “But then it was like we lost you, too. Laura handled it better than I did. You two were always close.”

Before I could formulate any kind of coherent response, Sean went on. “But you just seemed to get further and further away. You sold our house without even talking to us about it. You moved six hundred miles away. Laura went off to California, and there I was.” He paused. “It felt like you were cutting me out of your life.”

As he looked at me, the years of pain he’d experienced were almost a palpable presence between us.

I felt like I’d been gut-punched repeatedly. My legs were none too steady, but I managed to walk only inches from him. “Sean, look at me.”

For a moment he stared straight ahead. Then slowly he turned until we were eye to eye.

“From now on I will always listen. I’ll never push you away again. You and your sister are more important to me than anyone or anything.” I paused for a breath. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I never meant to do that, and I’ll never turn away from you again, I promise.”

I slipped my arms under his and pulled him close. He was stiff at first, but then he put his arms around me. I felt him tremble as he relaxed.

We stood that way for a moment, and then I gently disengaged myself. I stepped back, and Sean looked at me with a shy smile.

“Thanks, Dad. I guess I can understand what you were going through,” he said, his voice husky. “If you’re ready to listen, I’ll tell you about why I quit my job. Do you mind if we sit on the porch, though? I feel more comfortable out there.”

“Sure. But let’s get the broken crockery off the floor first.” I retrieved the small hand broom and dustpan from the cabinet, and as Sean picked out the biggest pieces, I swept up the rest.

“Sorry about the mess,” Sean said as he rinsed his hands in the sink.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I need something to drink. How about you?”

“Just some water,” Sean said. “You go on, and I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. I left Dante upstairs, and he’s probably having fits by now.”

He disappeared upstairs, and I poured both of us a glass of water. As I left the kitchen, Diesel hopped down the last stair and greeted me with a warble that sounded like a question.

“Yes, I know it’s late,” I said. “But we’re going out to the porch to talk, Sean and I. Come on.”

Out on the porch, I turned on one lamp with a low-wattage bulb. In the dim light we made ourselves comfortable, me in a lounge chair and Diesel stretched out on the old sofa next to me.

Sean and Dante joined us two minutes later. Dante went straight to the screen door and scratched. Sean laughed as he let the poodle out into the backyard. “Hey, Diesel, what about you? Want to go out?”

Diesel looked at Sean and yawned.

“I guess not.” He laughed again, let the door swing shut, and sat down in another lounge chair a few feet away and took a sip of water from the cup I had put there for him.

He stared at the floor a moment. “I wasn’t afraid to tell you about it, Dad. Mostly I was embarrassed.” He blushed. “You’ll think I was an idiot for getting myself into such a stupid situation in the first place.”

“No need to be embarrassed with me.” I spoke gently. “And I won’t think you’re an idiot. Besides, I’ve done a couple of things in my life that I’m still embarrassed to recall.”

“Okay, then, here goes. Lorelei, the woman who called a while ago, was my boss. She’s in her early forties, and she’s incredibly successful, one of the firm’s biggest rainmakers.” He paused for another sip of water.

“She’s also a praying mantis where men are concerned.” He blushed again. “For the past eighteen months I worked with her on two big cases, and I routinely put in over a hundred hours a week. We were together a lot, at least in the beginning, and, well, she’s very attractive.”

“Your relationship stopped being purely professional, in other words.” I kept my tone neutral. I was surprised that he had become involved with a woman around twenty years older than he. In high school and college he had dated only girls his own age.

“Yes, sir. She made it pretty clear that she was interested, and I fell for her, hard. She was all I could think about. I was willing to work as many hours as I had to, to please her.”

I had an idea where this was going, and my heart ached for my son.

Sean gazed out into the backyard. “This is the part where I feel really stupid. When the cases were ready to go to trial, she had me reassigned, and then I heard she was having an affair with another guy in the firm about my age. A guy who was working on a new case with her.” He sighed. “She used me to do the bulk of the work for her, and then she dumped me.”

I could think of several names I’d like to call the woman, to her face, but I kept them to myself. “Was that when you decided to quit?”

Sean had learned a hard lesson, and he would feel the scars for a long time.

“No, I was mad as a hornet. At her, at myself. I couldn’t let go of it, though. I guess I was so tired—I was still putting in long hours every week—I wasn’t really thinking clearly about what I was doing.” He laughed bitterly. “Then I decided to get even with her.”