my father's fate

Daniel couldn’t believe this. The man he had grown up to respect as his father had just been arrested and sentenced to death by hanging. His own father was the serial killer that Britannia had suffered from for the past three years.  Eight women had been killed and two were left to die in the woods and found by police after a whole week of searching. They had described the suspect to police. Daniel remembered the day he saw that photo. Even when he saw that the man bore much resemblance to his father, he did not want to believe his father was responsible for this. How could he be? Rosemary had been attacked and killed by the serial killer. It couldn’t be him. Why would he rape and murder his son’s own fiancée? But police evidence had proved it was him. He had raped and murdered all eight victims including his beloved Rosemary, the women he had sworn to marry.

He took one look at his father. This was him, the man who had taken the life of his beautiful wife to be.  He felt partially guilty because although this man had killed seven others, he felt as though his heart would excuse all of it if he hadn’t touched Rose. How could he touch his son’s fiancée? She was forbidden fruit, especially for him. At once Daniel gathered the courage to speak.  “Why dad? Why Rosie?  Of all the women in Britannia, why did you have to touch her? My one and only true love, why did you have to take her away from me? Father, I loved her. Of all the women in the world father it is her that I loved, tell me why you had to take her away from me” Richard looked at him. There he was, Daniel, the little boy he had loved from birth. He had watched him grow and cared for him more than he had cared for his other children. He was proud of him. Dan was an excellent lawyer; he owned 5 businesses in town. How could he tell him he did all this out of pure insanity?  How did he tell him he had the urge to kill and make people suffer after he had witnessed his own wife murdered three years ago? How could he tell him he was angry at the world for not attempting to find the men who had entered his house and slaughtered his wife with an axe?

 

And then he spoke “I am sorry Danny; I didn’t know it was her. I wouldn’t have touched her” and then his eyes glittered, tears streamed down his face. “Danny, I’m sorry” he said this and he looked down. That had been the events of their last meeting. Tomorrow he would see him again in the prison hanging room. His father would be killed tomorrow. He would have to suffer the consequences of his wrong doing. He would be murdered like he murdered Rosie. Murdered the same way mother had been murdered three years ago. He could appeal and represent his dad in court. They could appeal for a lighter sentence, but he was not going to do that. Not to the man who had killed the love of his life. Not to him, he would have to die. 

 

He looked at him. He was sure he had been the last person his father had seen. His other siblings did not show up. They were angry at what he had done to people. For him, it was different. He had a grudge to hold. He wanted to see it; the death of a man who had ruined his life. He felt happy but sad; the kind of sadness that completed him. And when his father’s neck broke, he felt his heart ache and then he realised what he had done. He had let his father die. He felt no better than his father, he felt as though he had killed a man; as if he had pulled the rope that had killed his father. His father had never tried to appeal solely. He had placed the ball in Danny’s court and Daniel felt as though he had failed to play. He remembered the promise he gave to Rosemary’s corpse. “I will make sure the man who did this pays with his life” he had promised, but then he wouldn’t have dreamt it to be his own father. He left feeling like a true lover and big hero to his late fiancée yet feeling like an even bigger traitor to his father. As he drove home he wondered to himself, what will separate a man and his father if it isn’t true love?