Unleash The Island

Chapter 32

The next day, Gavin sold the G-Wagon and the two of them split the money, getting two normal cars. Once Leo got the keys to his, he drove with the note his mother wrote on his lap. Lisa had told him how she loved him and would do anything for him. At the bottom of it, an address was circled. It was time to figure out what it was before he left the island. It was somewhere in the middle of the island. Nothing about the area was familiar to him.

The GPS told him he arrived, so he parked in front of it. It was a small, two story house. It had wooden walls and white trimming around the windows. Lisa never mentioned anything about it to Leo. He turned the car off and opened the door. His eyes scanned the house for anything. There was a car in the driveway, making him uneasy. With small steps, he inched towards the door. With his hand gripping the note, he knocked on the door with his knuckles. There was silence for a bit, making Leo want to leave, but the door creaked open. A man stood there with oil stains on his pants, eyeing Leo. They had met before on the beach a couple days ago, but it felt like they were strangers all over again.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Leo said, cutting the silence. "My mom...she wrote this note to me and it brought me to this place." He looked at the note again to make sure he put the right address into his phone.

"You're Leo, right? From the beach?" Ed asked, to reassure himself that he was standing in front of him. Leo shoved the note back into the envelope and nodded. With a sigh, the man widened the door and asked, "Would you like to come in?"

"Sure, if that's alright," Leo said. He walked into the house and scanned it. There was nothing alarming at all. There was a kitchen with white cabinets. It was tidy.

"You want water, or something?" Ed asked him as he closed the door behind him.

"No, I'm good." Leo made sure to face Ed. Looking at him did not give him any clarity. "You said you knew my mom?"

"Yeah." Ed sat at the kitchen table, leading to Leo joining him on the other side. "We were childhood friends."

There was something missing from the statement. If this address was significant enough for her mother to write, this house or Ed must have been something important. He wanted to peel it out of the man in front of him, but did not know how to. Instead of asking another question, Leo scanned the walls for any clues he could grab at. There were framed pictures on the walls. One of them stood out; it was a picture of Lisa at a young age at the beach with a group around her, including a young Ed, Georgia, and Morgan.

"We went to the beach a lot," Ed said, noticing the picture he neglected to take off the wall. "Your mother, my siblings, and I."

Leo stripped his eyes from the picture and decided to get away from the small talk. "Why did my mom write this address down?"

Ed was hesitant to open that door to this grieving young man. He could tell him the truth upfront. He could show him the pictures he had from his birth. He could even show his copy of the birth certificate. He could be the father he always wanted to be for his son. It would be selfish if he did not give Leo any answers, but there were risks involved.

Ed rose from his chair and said, "I'll be right back." Leo remained in his chair, eyeballing Ed. "Don't worry. I'm not some weirdo. I'll be back in two seconds."

Like muscle memory, he went up the stairs two steps at a time. While Ed was sorting through items, paperwork, and anything he could think of, Leo remained in the chair. His leg bobbed up and down. When Ed came back, he held two things: a large envelope and a smaller one. Ed sat back in his spot at the table and opened the large one first. When he found what he wanted, he snatched it with two fingers and placed it on the table.

"This here has all the contents I brought to the cops," Ed stated. "Everything Georgia gave me, sent to this house, and what I printed myself." With one finger, he pushed the stapled papers towards Leo, who studied it. It was divorce papers that were not completed. Ed sent another packet. These were a few of the photos Georgia had taken over the course of two years. There were dates on the back of each one. "Your mother and I helped Georgia collect everything for when she was ready to divorce Wayne, and maybe send him to prison."

"She died before she could," Leo added in, "but why didn't either of you bring this to the cops?" That was when Leo started to fill his head with questions. "Why did my mom marry Wayne if she knew all this about Georgia?"

"That part is something I never understood," Ed said as he pulled the papers back towards him and placed them into the envelope. He held the smaller one in his hand and slid it across the table so it was in front of Leo. He jabbed his finger onto the envelope and said, "In here, you will get your answers." Leo opened it, sliding whatever was inside of it out and into this hand. It was a phone. "I don't know if it's legal to give you that, but that was Lisa's old phone."

There was something that hit Ed like a tsunami wave. Looking at this baby he once knew, seeing him grown up, did something to him. Parts of Lisa were sitting right in front of him, but also pieces of himself. Leo was not just Lisa's son, but also his and him being in this house made him remember that after all that time. He watched as Leo punched in the password and scrolled through the phone's content. He must have also known that she was bad with passwords. His son was sitting right in front of him, something he always prayed to happen.

"I'm the reason she married Wayne," Ed blurted out, causing Leo to bring his eyes back up. "I watched her drive away, with you in the car, and I didn't do shit about it. I let her run away and marry him because it was what she wanted."

The lines in this case were starting to turn green in Leo's head. "Why?"

"Because she wanted a better life for you and herself," the man said.

Leo did not need to see whatever else was on his mother's old phone. He wanted Ed to say it himself. "I'll ask again. Why did my mom write this address down?"

Ed took a deep breath in before saying, with every part of his being, "Because I'm your father, Leonidas."