Bonus Chapter
ISAIAH
Istood outside the small, terraced house in a street that was just like any other.
Nothing remarkable. A typical English estate with kids playing in the street, and people chatting on their doorstep.
They didn’t pay much attention to me. I was nothing special.
But this day was a day I never thought I’d see.
I opened the small wooden gate, stepped onto the path, and closed it behind me. Then I took a moment to look at the house, before I approached the front door. I didn’t see anyone at the windows, and as I tried to keep my beating heart under control, I thought maybe she wouldn’t be here.
What if this was all a mistake?
My hands shook as I lifted my arm to ring the doorbell.
But I did what I could to block the intrusive thoughts from my brain.
I pressed the bell, heard the ringing coming from inside, and I stood back.
I didn’t want to frighten her when she opened the door and saw a heavily tattooed stranger standing on her doorstep.
The door opened and a middle-aged, slim woman with dark hair stood on the step, frowning. She went to speak but nothing came out, and her mouth fell open as she stared at me.
Then her eyes brimmed with tears, and she gasped, “You look just like him,” before covering her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent tears, and I heard her whisper, “Please Lord, don’t do this to me.”
I didn’t speak. I wanted to give her chance to compose herself. To take it all in.
After a few seconds that felt like forever, she moved her hands away from her face, and in a low, vulnerable voice, she asked, “Who are you?”
I stayed where I was, keeping my distance as I said, “My name is Isaiah James. But I think you know me as Enzo.”
Her legs buckled beneath her as her sobs broke free. She couldn’t contain them any longer, and I lurched forward, putting my arms around her to help her.
“It’s not...” She sobbed, struggling to speak. “You’re not... you can’t be.”
I lifted her in my arms and ushered her to the door.
“I think we need to sit down for this conversation.”
I walked with her into her house, closing the front door behind us, and leading her into her cosy little living room.
The TV was on, but I took her remote control from the arm of the sofa and switched it off.
She sat down on her sofa, and I sat next to her.
And as I did, she glanced at me and gasped.
From that moment, she couldn’t take her eyes off me.
“I know you look like him...” She sniffed, and I took a tissue from a box on her coffee table and passed it to her. “But my eyes play tricks on me. I see him everywhere.”
“Who do you see?” I asked.
“My Michael.”
I sat still as she dabbed her eyes, and then I asked, “Who is Michael?”
Her eyes dipped for a second before she lifted them and replied, “My husband. The father of my baby.”
“Can you tell me about your baby?” I asked, and she wept, then told me the same story I’d heard from Quinn’s traitorous mouth. But the part about her being murdered was lies. Lies meant to torment me further. To keep me away from the one thing I’d always dreamed of.
When she finished, I took her hand in mine and said, “You were right to mistrust him. He did lie. I didn’t die. But I only found out you existed recently, when you sent that email to Adam Noble.”
She shook her head in disbelief, but then she reached out and put her hands on my face, and my heart broke when she said, “Is it really you? Are you my baby boy?”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. My throat was thick, and my voice had withered to nothing.
“Where have you been for all these years?” she gasped.
“Dreaming of you,” I managed to reply, and her sobs intensified, as her face crumbled under the weight of it all.
We sat for hours talking about what had happened on the night she’d given birth.
I didn’t tell her about my life before Abigail.
She had been through enough; she didn’t need to know her baby was ripped from her womb and thrown into hell.
She’d lived long enough in a hell of her own.
But today was the start of something new.
The past didn’t matter anymore. We had a future, my mother and me.
I told her I had a family of my own now and took my phone out. She sat close to me, her leg touching mine as I showed her a photo of me and Abigail.
“She’s beautiful,” she remarked, touching the screen with her fingertip. “Her hair is stunning. Look at all those curls. And you look so in love.”
“She’s everything to me,” I exclaimed, then I swiped to the photo of my son and told her, “And this is our son... your grandson, Enzo.”
She covered her mouth with her hands as she started to cry again.
Then she took the phone from my hands and held it like it was the most precious thing she’d ever held.
She glanced from the phone, to me, then back again, and with her voice cracking with emotion, she said, “My baby grew up to be a beautiful man, and now you’ve brought another baby into my life.
Another baby Enzo. I can’t wait to hold him in my arms.”
“I’m so sorry it took so long to find you,” I told her.
“I’m sorry I ever let you go,” she replied, and then she leaned forward and hugged me. I hugged her back. I hugged my mother for the first time ever, and a little piece of my fractured, wretched heart felt like it fused together.
Eventually, she pulled away, wiped her tears and said, “I knew when they put the other baby in my arms that it wasn’t you. I just knew. Call it mother’s instinct or whatever, but I prayed every day that this moment would come.”
“And now it has.” I paused. “Can I ask you about my father? What kind of man is he?”
“Was,” she corrected, and I felt a harsh sting in my gut.
She stood up and walked over to her bookshelf, pulled a photo album from it, and walked back over to sit with me.
“Your father was a good man. He served in the military. That’s how he died. He was on tour, and his unit was out on patrol when they drove over an IED. It killed them instantly. That’s the only comfort I have, that he didn’t suffer.”
She smiled as she started to flip through her photo album.
“Your father liked tattoos. He had quite a few of them, just like you.” She settled on a page and pointed at a photo of a group of soldiers standing together. “There is he. That’s my Michael.”
I took the album from her and peered closely at the man who was my father.
He had a strong build, stood tall and confident, and I couldn’t deny, he did look like me.
And then I looked at the men who stood beside him, and at the end, standing apart from the others, looking out of place, stood a face I’d never forget as long as I lived.
Frederick Wilson from Clivesdon House.
“Do you know this guy?” I asked, pointing him out.
“If I remember right, your father wasn’t keen on that man. Said he was a coward. I think they had a few fights, and your father reported him for his poor conduct. Your dad said he put a lot of soldiers’ lives at risk with the way he behaved.”
The puzzle pieces were all falling into place. Wilson knew my father. I’m guessing he knew who I was too. Charles Quinn had probably told him.
Was that why they kept me there so long?
He couldn’t let me go because he couldn’t let his hatred of my father go. I was the vessel he used to take out his twisted anger and sick revenge. I could be wrong, and I’d probably never know the truth, but the facts were there, and it felt too convenient.
“He’ll be looking down on us now,” my mother said proudly, dragging me out of my dark memory, back to the here and now. “He’ll be watching us and smiling. He’d be so glad we found each other.”
“He’s not the only one.”
“He was a good man. It killed him that he wasn’t there when you were born.”
I hadn’t been a good man. But I hoped that I could be the man I needed to be, for now and in the future.
A loving husband.
A doting father.
And a strong, reliable son.
The End.