Page 134 of Restitution

I feel material pull over my head, and I want to thank her, but I can’t speak.

I keep thinking my dad will pop up out of nowhere and surprise us. I keep thinking he’ll walk through the manor doors and pull us all in for a family hug. That the police will call again and say he’s been spotted somewhere far away. I thought, for a split second, the detective would mention him.

I think my dad is actually dead.

Mum probably thinks the same. She’s worried; cries sometimes when my dad is brought up, and my sister can barely hold back tears whenever he’s mentioned. But then again, she’s been a bag of emotions lately. Even I’ve had to hold her for long periods of time. Like me, Luciella has a hard time registering certain emotions. But hers have always been more controlled, less angry, more silent. With Base being here with his wife, she must be losing her mind.

She doesn’t see a therapist – Jason was the one she spoke to, until he vanished for two years. And now he’s dead.

Base loves her regardless of how insanely controlling she is. And I know this marriage has been one of the worst things that’s ever happened to him. He tried to get out of it. He tried to pay the girl to refuse the proposal and offered alternative men who wouldbe more suitable. He even told the family that he would never love her, but a deal was a deal.

Now Base is trapped with a wife he doesn’t want, in a family he hates, to protect the woman he loves. Their story has the potential to be more disastrous than my parents’.

“Kade, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

In all fairness, Dad did try to be good – the same way Base has been trying to win Luciella over since she turned eighteen, to be good enough, to show he’s not just a fuckboy who wants another notch on his bedpost. When I was six, my dad got his diagnosis after years of professionals arguing for and against different spectrums. Mum fought and fought and fought even more to get him the help he needed.

Soft lips press to my temple again, but I’m trapped in my own mind as Stacey tries to take the life-changing paperwork from my grip. I can’t let the pages go though, even if I try.

My vision is blurring, and there’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears.

The doctors… The doctors… One argued Dad had a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Another debated he had a schizotypal personality disorder that caused psychosis. He had autistic traits that didn’t lead to a diagnosis because doctors refused screening, but he had even more traits that went against that diagnosis anyway.

“I’m going to walk you to our room, okay?”

Another stated that he could be a sociopath, or he had OCD. The last doctor said he was acting and was just trying to outsmart everyone, and he was simply obsessed with my mother to the point of becoming a danger to himself and everyone around him. But he showed signs of neurological behaviours way before he met her.

After medication, therapy and a lot of time in the institution, hefell into one personality – one dad, one human being – and his mind stopped playing games enough that he got his ASPD diagnosis, coexisting with anxiety, impulse control and depressive disorders.

Still, doctors strongly believed my father’s mind was a lot more complex than that.

“Is he okay? What’s that in his hand?”

“The letter about the protection order. He won’t let it go. I think he’s in shock, Aria.”

“Oh, Ewan, darling, help Stacey get him to their room.”

Someone tall snakes my arm over his shoulder.

My mum says, “Let’s get him to bed. I think seeing so many people around him after everything that’s happened has finally hit him. I’ll make some tea and toast.”

“Woah. Is he drunk?”

“No, Desmond. He’s in shock,” Mum says. “Sebastian, sweetie, take his other arm. He’s losing consciousness.”

I’m awake and I’m here, I want to tell them.I can hear you all, but I can’t talk. I want to tell them that we’re going to be safe. I want to tell my dad we’ll all be okay.

My dad loved us.

“He’s going to seize,” someone says in the distance. “Get him on the floor.”

Dad loved our family, despite struggling to understand the feeling.

Tobias Mitchell fell in love with Aria Miller, and no one will ever understand the level of obsession he had for her.

“Just breathe, sweetheart.”

He’s dead, so I guess no one will ever truly know how his mind worked.