Captive

Chapter Seventeen

"He's ok Mr Hart, more wounded pride than anything else but I think a visit might cheer him a little," the nurse explained over the phone. Bret shifted his phone to his other ear as he went through to the bathroom, stripping as he went. He had told them to call him any time day or night if his father needed anything and was suspicious that the nurse was playing it down. They surely wouldn't call him before eight in the morning if they didn't have to. But her next words reassured him a little. "He's a little... erm grumpy this morning."

"He's giving you hell?" Bret asked and the nurse laughed.

"You could say that yes. If you could come down and talk to him I'm sure it would cheer him up a little. To be honest I think the fall has frightened him, made him realise that going home might be a challenge. He needs twenty four hour care Mr Hart. He was already showing signs of dementia before the accident happened and there have been a few confused moments of late. He's been asking where his wife is a lot." Bret sighed; this didn't surprise him all that much. As the nurse said, even before the attack his father would sometimes look all round the house and then demand to know where the hell his wife had got to. It was hard when you had to remind him that she was gone. Hard to see the fresh grief, as intense as it had been when she first passed.

"I'll be there in about half an hour," he said. He messaged Davey, asking him to come straight over before he got in the shower and as soon as his brother in law arrived at just before eight he headed away. His dad was in his room, sat in his chair with a brooding glare on his face when Bret arrived.

"What are you doing here? Have you come to take me home?"

"Not yet Dad," he said and the old man scowled. "They said you'd had a bit of a fall."

"Can't even go from my damn bed to this chair without stumbling like some old man. It's not right. I could run from one side of the ring to the other, jump over a full grown man stood up if I needed to and now I can't even get out of bed without falling. Don't get old son!" His voice was full of bitterness and he turned misty eyes to his son. "I'm done for this world Bret. Don't want to be here any more, don't want to be a burden to anyone. I hear your mother calling me in the night and I just want to be with her."

"It's not your time yet Dad," Bret said, trying to ignore the sudden grief that welled up inside of him and his dad gave him a remarkably clear look.

"The day that Michael Callaway bested me was the day I knew my time was up, son," he said. Bret glared at the mention of the man who did this to his dad but the old man waved his hand dismissively. "If it hadn't been him it would've been someone else, we both know that. My time is short, at least I hope it is. I don't want to carry on like this. And you need to be settling down not spending your time watching over an old man."

"Dad...."

"No. I mean it son. I know there's a girl, can see it in your eyes. And every time you open your mouth these days you find an excuse to mention her. And I know who she is."

"It isn't right though is it? After what her dad did to you." His dad shrugged, a defeated expression on his face.

"She ain't her dad," he said. "Can't go punishing her for what he did; you know that." Bret squirmed a little because that was exactly what he was doing and he knew it. His dad gave him a level look. "If she's had to put up with that man as her father she needs a man who can be a real man, not a whiny no good piece of shit drug addicted asshole. She needs a man like you son." And his words made something flare in Bret's chest, something between hope and pride, tinged with grief because he was not that man. He was a man who had bullied and hurt a girl already vulnerable and he was ashamed of himself. He resolved as he headed home that he would speak to her as they had said they would the night before and he would make sure she heard him, make sure she knew exactly how he felt about her. Anything had to be better than the pained silence between them which stretched out creating a distance between them that felt insurmountable, making them both isolated and hurt. He needed to close that distance, help her to remember the boy he had once been, the boy who would listen to her, protect her, make her feel safe and cared for.