Life is Never the Same

I studied this case over and over and over again. I was able to see as the police officer what had happened, but as that eight year old little boy who had just heard that the man that he had idolized his whole life was gone, I still didn’t understand.

I sat in the empty white room with one large table that was surrounded by plastic chairs. I had wanted to do this. But more than wanting, I felt as if I needed to do this. I needed to clear this up. Not for the man that I had become, or the detective that I wanted to be, but as that little boy in the living room listening to his mother cry after the police men had left.

But what hurt the most was the idea that my father, Thomas Jacobson, wasn’t killed by some stranger. It was his best friend, Brady Willis. Brady had been like an uncle to me. My dad was eighteen when I was born. He was in his mid twenties, and my hero, when he was killed.

My foot was nervously tapping the carpeted floor in the room as I looked up to the door every few minutes to see if the man that I had informally called my uncle was going to walk in from his prison cell.

My arms crossed in front of me. I knew that this was going to happen about a month ago. I was given the opportunity to have what is called a victim/offender dialogue by one of my colleagues in the Burlington Police Department where I worked in Kansas. He had mentioned it when he noted that Mr. Willis was supposed to be up for parole in about two years. I had looked at him in disgust when he told me and then he asked if I ever wondered why Mr. Willis had done it. He didn’t realize that that was the only thing that I ever thought of. After that, he said that he could set up the dialogue.

So, that left me sitting here. A guard was standing discreetly in the corner and wouldn’t have seemed visible if it wasn’t for the light breathing that I heard behind me. I heard a door squeak open. I heard shackled feet drag across the floor and shake from the man’s hand. My head shot up and I stared into Brady’s brown eyes. He was ordinary. He wouldn’t have been anything special if you were to see him in a crowded place. Your gaze may have scanned over him for a moment, but he wasn’t anything memorable. He was only memorable to me.

A guard followed him in. Then Brady smiled.

He smiled at me. The man who had killed my father had just smiled at me like I was seeing him after a long vacation. “Ethan? Good God, boy, you sure have grown. The spitting image of your mother, I have to say. But ya have Tommy’s scrawny build.” He sat down across from me and rested his chained hands on the plastic table.

“Did you get any of the letters that I sent you and your mother?” He asked.

“I didn’t read any of them.” I told him, staring at him blankly.

“Oh, well, that is all the past. How has my nephew been?”

My eyes glazed over in cold hate. “I haven’t been your nephew for fourteen years.” I said. I couldn’t let myself feel any emotion. I wouldn’t let this man see how he had changed me.

Brady’s almost genuine smile cracked and faltered until there was nothing left but a grim line. He sighed and his shoulders fell forward from where they once were held erect. “I see.” He muttered.

“Well, how has it been, Mr. Sedlack?” I winced. It reminded me of my dad. He used to call me Mr. Sedlack because I he thought that I would end up looking like him. I always wanted to look like him. I wanted his blue eyes and blond hair. I wanted to be just like him. Instead I received my mother’s brown eyes and brown hair.

Distracting myself from the memories, I asked him. “What happened that night, Mr. Willis?”

His brow furrowed. He looked away from me. “I don’t remember.”

“Really?” I asked a sarcastic edge cutting through my voice. “Why lie to me? You know that I know everything.”

“What do you mean, you know everything?”

“I have looked over my dad’s case so many times that I have the police report memorized. Do you know the time that my dad died?” Brady looked away from me. “Do you?”

“But that was the past. Why don’t we just talk-“

I huffed in anger interrupting him. “You really don’t get it, do you? Did you think that I came here for a social call?”

Brady sighed. “No,” He admitted.

“It was 10:06 pm if you want to know.” I informed him and I slouched back down into my chair. “It will be sixteen years this September. Are you proud of yourself?”

“Why would I be proud?” He asked in disgusted.

“Well, according to one of the witness reports, you pulled the gun on my dad and when he tried to calm you down, you said that he didn’t think that you had the ‘balls to do it.’”

I gave a hostile and mocking smile. “I guess that he found out that you could do it, huh?”

Brady looked at me shocked. “What happened to you?”

I gave a humorless laugh. “You happened to me. This murder happened to me.” Exasperated, I thundered. “I have studied all the police reports, ME reports, psychologist reports, the trial, everything that is available to cops and everything that I had to get a warrant to look at all to answer just one question. I even talked to the detective on the case at the time, for Christ’s sake, and he didn’t even understand it!”

We both sat in silence for a moment when finally my reserve and composure crumbled.

“Why?” I whispered although it sounded more like a squeak. The words hurt as they came out. It was as if I was pushing glass through my throat.

Brady raised his eyebrows, but dropped his gaze as if he was in agony. “Straight to the point. That’s your father coming through.”

“Why did you do it Brady? Why?” He stayed silent and I felt tears well in my eyes. Damn it.

“I never meant to do it, Eth. I was young and stupid and drunk.”

“And like that makes it okay to kill your best friend?” I grumbled and was starting to shake. My jaw was clenched.

“Nothing would make what I did acceptable. Nothing.” Brady assured me.

“You don’t know how much hell I had to deal with after he was dead? Do you know what it was like in football when my dad wasn’t there to play catch with me? Do you know what it was like after my first black eye? After my first date? After my first kiss?” I didn’t give him time to answer and I felt moisture start to overflow. I pounded my fist on the table.

“You couldn’t! You’re so selfish. You took away what meant the most to me. What made my life worth living. I miss his smile. I miss him calling me his best friend. I miss him like I would missthe sun.”

I turned to Brady in fury. But what made me more raged was that he wasn’t doing anything. He was sitting there as if he had heard these words a thousand times before. “So?”

“I will never understand what I put you through. But every night, I prayed to God that you would be better and that your mother would stop crying. I was stupid. And you’re right, I was selfish. I was drunk and I got into a fight and your dad tried to stop me, and before I knew what I was doing, I heard a shot. I saw his eyes widen in amazement and I watched him fall to the ground. I couldn’t do anything. I was done. I didn’t deserve anything else. I dropped the gun.”

I shuttered in pain. I looked up at him and I saw that he was crying like I was. “I wanted death, Eth. I wanted it so badly. During my trial, I believed everything that the prosecution said. I was a monster. And I will always be a monster.”

Brady dropped his head into his arms and sobbed, muttering that he was sorry. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, so very very sorry.”

I leaned over and reached out to touch him. But then my hand hesitated and went back to its original place on the table. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t touch him or try to console him. It then fisted at my side. We both sat there for what seemed like eternity, both crying because of one man.

Then I realized that I had let him run my life for fourteen years. I had become obsessed with knowing the why, when really there wasn’t one. There was no reason that could be explained to me. Brady was still my dad’s best friend. He was still a part of my life, whether I wanted him to be or not.

When he had pulled that trigger, he had affected so many lives. He hadn’t just ruined mine and my mother’s, he had also ruined his own. He hadn’t just taken away one life that night. He had taken away two and had left scars that even time couldn’t heal.

I stared at him, and him at me, when he looked at me one more time. “I’m sorry.”

I turned to him and let the words fly free from my mouth. They were almost painless. “I almost forgive you.”

Brady’s eyes connected with my own and for the first time I saw a shimmer of hope. “That’s all that I could ever wish for.”