He stopped talking for a second to look at Ashley, happily chatting to the girls as little Barbara clambered over all of them, then carried on.
“I think I know why, too, and it’s probably the same for you. Ashley and I didn’t grow-up together; she was born long after I was abducted, and she was already an adult when we met; I was just a vague story about something that happened a long time ago, so there was no ‘sibling bond’ or anything like that. Ashley explained it to me once; apart from that one family relationship through a shared parent, we have no other connection, no life together as siblings, so it was easy for us, just as it was probably easy for you, and for the same reason. Or perhaps we just have a twisted gene that makes us bunk-up our sisters!”
He grinned as he said it, and I breathed a sigh of relief, and then sensed someone standing behind me. I turned, to see Nick’s mother standing there. She put her arm through mine again, and reached up to stroke Nick’s cheek.
“I heard what you both said, and Nicky’s right; if Shereen’s the girl for you, then that’s who she is. When Nicky and Ashley first got together it bothered me, and made me angry, but no-one in the world had ever loved her like Nicky did, she was his whole world, and he was hers, and I eventually saw it too. My husband loves her like a daughter, he thinks of her as his daughter, just like Judy and our little girl, Rachel, and he couldn’t have wished for a better husband for her than Nicky, so these things do work out, it just takes a little effort. Forget about what happened in the past, that doesn’t matter now, but if you’re anything like Nicky, then you’ve got it in you to make it work too, just let her know once in a while how you feel about her!”
She smiled, and piloted me back into the centre of the family to meet her husband, Nick’s stepfather. Doctor Nixon came across as a good man; Ashley obviously adored him, as did Judy, his own daughter. I noticed Ashley called him “dad” as often as Judy called Julia “Mom”, so there was obviously a lot of love there, and Nick was just as obviously deeply in love with his little sister, four year-old Rachel, looking sleepy and shy and just adorable in her little ‘Pokemon’ nightdress.
I was sitting quietly for a moment while Nick and Leon went to get coffee for everyone, when Doctor Nixon sat down next to me. I’d found him incredibly easy to talk to, he seemed to be able to draw things out of me that I had no intention of mentioning, but he did it so well, and so unobtrusively, that I found myself talking with him like an old family friend.
Somehow, I found myself telling him about Barbara, and what Shari’s mother had told Rick about how she’d died, that our father had murdered her, how he’d boasted to her what he’d done, how he did it, and what he did to Nick.
Doctor Nixon looked at me levelly.
“I saw what Brian Davis did to Nick; I treated him for some of it myself. When Nick came here his back and shoulders were a mass of cuts and welts, his clothes were blood-soaked, and he was suffering from post-traumatic shock, almost like those poor boys coming back from Iraq; he was a mess, and that man boasted of it, did he? Well, I’m not surprised, but you don’t know the half of it; he blackmailed his associate here to rape and beat Julia, as her punishment for leaving him; he didn’t get to her, but poor Ashley walked into the middle of it, and she took what your father had set in motion.”
My shock at hearing this, at the final knowledge of just how depraved and evil my father was, must have shown, because Doctor Nixon clasped my shoulder, a warm, human gesture as I let the shock and horror wash out of me. He looked at me sympathetically as I tried to come to terms with what I was hearing. Just then, Leon handed me a coffee, so I took a long sip, letting the rich brew calm me as Doctor Nixon waited. Eventually I was braced enough to hear the rest of what he had to say.
“Please, go on, I know there’s more, so please, finish what you were telling me.”
He looked appraisingly at me for a moment, then continued.
“Ashley became an outcast at her school after what… happened to her. No-one but Judy was there for her, the others called her names, shunned her, she had no friends, no social life, none of the things a teenage girl should have. Her mother had no money for new clothes or the latest fashions, and that made it worse; the whole school treated her like some kind of pariah, because of what that man had done to her. They used to call her “Rag Doll”, and she only had her mother, and Judy, and it was the two of them against the world.”
He paused, staring reflectively into his coffee cup, before continuing, his voice soft and far away.
“Only my Judy was there for her, something I will be proud of until the day I die; that my girl stepped up and stepped in front of Ashley, and faced down the bullies and the name-callers for her friend.”
He paused to take another sip of coffee, then continued.
“It took Ashley a long, long time to get past that, and it was only because of Nicky that she managed it at all, and is who she is today. When I first met her mother, I was filled with admiration for her; she’d managed to make a life for her daughter and herself out of the shards and splinters of her old life, and that is just one of the reasons I married her. Now, Ashley’s my daughter, Judy’s her sister, and Nick is my son, and they’re happy, they’re a family at last. Brian Davis has caused a lot of misery and heartache for his family and the people around them, but now he’s caged-up in a place where he can sit and twiddle his thumbs for the rest of his life while he thinks about what he’s done.”
He paused, and looked penetratingly at me.
“Nicky, however, still needs help; he’s still mourning for his mother, which is how he thinks of Barbara; he believes he left her to die, that he somehow caused her death, and he thinks he needs to atone for it. We’ve done all we could, but you, his family, are going to have to help him out of that, he can’t do it himself; will you help him?”
Of course I agreed; how could I not? With these final revelations of the true depth of my father’s evil, all those little things inside me, the parts of him I hadn’t yet exorcised now dissipated, and I was finally free of every molecule of him and his influence. I noticed the little girl, Rachel, standing next to me, yawning sleepily and staring shyly at me, so Doctor Nixon beckoned her closer, grinning as she climbed on his lap and twisted round to look at me again.
“Bobby, this is Nick’s littlest sister; Rachel, say hello to Bobby!”
“Hello Bobby, my name’s Rachel. Why do you look like Nicky?”
I held out my hand and she took it, clambering from her father’s lap to mine.
“I look like Nicky because Nicky’s my big brother, just like he’s your big brother!” I told her, watching her puzzled look as it slowly cleared up.
“Are you my big brother too?” she piped, her head tilted adorably to one side. I looked at her father, unsure what to say, and he shrugged and nodded, so I grinned back at her.
“Yes, yes I am; and see that man over there? His name’s Ricky and he’s your big brother too!”
Nicky came over and tousled her hair, grinning his familiar lopsided grin at her.
“What are you doing out of bed? Come on, trouble, before mommy catches you!”
Rachel jumped up and hugged Nick as he picked her up.
“Read to me Nicky, pleeeeaasse! Read me some more about Pooh and Pig-uh-let, pleeeeaasse?”
Nick lifted her up and smiled at her.
“Alright, but only a few pages, okay? Say goodnight to Bobby, pumpkin!” She nodded and dimpled at me.
“Nicky and Ashley took me to the 100 Acre Wood and showed me where Pooh and Pig-uh-let live, and the Woozle, and rabbit’s house, Nicky knows Pooh and rabbit, and the Heffalump, and everything! Goodnight Bobby!”
I watched them leave, and felt a hand on my shoulder; it was Shari, a small smile on her lips.
“Who’d have thought you’d be so good with children, Bobby? You know, I really do think you’ll be okay! And now we have to go, but Ashley and Nicky will be coming to the hotel tomorrow morning, we have things to talk about, you know what, so let’s say goodnight, baby, we’ll see them again tomorrow, don’t worry.”
Leon drove us back to the hotel, and walked up to our room with us, hugging Yaz and Shari goodnight and shaking hands with me and Rick, before telling us he’d see us again at the house before we left. He still had a while left of his unspent vacation time, so he wanted to spend some time with us, and Judy definitely wanted to spend some time with the girls again; as she’d pointed out with a grin, Yaz and Shari were kind of, sort of, something like, her sisters too, and she wanted to get properly acquainted with her extended family.
When Leon had left, I flopped back on the bed, the events of the day crowding together in my head as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened on such an eventful day. Twelve hours ago we’d been having breakfast in a small upstate town, planning on getting back to Albany so we could quiz the private investigator. Now suddenly Nicky was back; he had a wife, a daughter, a mother and father, and yet another little sister.
My head was running close to overload, I needed to sleep on all this, because the worst was yet to come; in the morning we had to tell him that he’d been right, that his beloved Barbara had indeed been murdered, and we had the proof. I yawned, the crowded day catching up to me, and Shari bounced onto the bed next to me, jarring me into wakefulness.
“Wakey-Wakey, Sleeping Beauty! I told you, you owe me, time to pay up, buster, come on, get naked, I want to play!”
I grinned and pulled her against me, my hand snaking down to grab and squeeze her taut little bottom. She grinned back at me, and gently bit my chin.
“So you are awake, after all! Good, my turn Bobby, and tonight I want something special!”
I looked questioningly at her hoping for a hint, but she just smiled minxily and bit her bottom lip, the one gesture I have no defence against. I struggled to sit back upright as she began to strip-off, popping her jeans and lying back so I could tug them off her. Underneath she just wore small thong panties, and once she pulled off her tank-top she was naked, except for those panties. I had managed to get my jeans, sweater and polo shirt off, and was left in just my shorts, with the evidence of my arousal plain to see. Shari smiled as she reached out to grab me, squeezing as she scooted closer to kiss me firmly.