Guilty Until Proven Innocent Pt. 02

It was with that, that one summer evening a few months later, he came and sat down on the deck with the first frown I had seen on his face in since that night. In his hands he held a letter, for a moment I was concerned as he sat down and looked at me.

"You alright honey?" I asked.

He slowly nodded.

"Yeah," he replied, then he sighed and looked out at the fading light over the ocean, the sound of the waves breaking against the shore in the distance. He fingered the letter in his hands.

"I'd like you to look at something Hon." He told me, a strong note of hesitation in his voice. "I think it's time that I reached out to my kids..."

He trailed off and I watched him wince as he said the words.

I gave him a big warm comforting smile, I had never pushed him for any type of reconciliation with his family. Honestly, if Mike never spoke to them again I was fine with that. Of everyone who had betrayed and abused him, his immediate family were by far the greatest offenders.

I watched for a few more moments as he fingered the paper in his hands, it looked to be a hand written letter, I was assuming from his statement that it was to his kids.

"Hun," I said softly, bringing his attention back to me. His old family wasn't quite taboo, but it was a subject both of us treated delicately. After his breakdown in Perth years ago, both of us knew to be careful.

"Did you want me to read it?" I asked indicating to the letter.

He nodded and slid the letter over to me.

"Yeah," Mike said. "It's just to the kids. After... After the dream, I think I can handle some type of communication with them. It would be nice if I could get you to read it before I ask Terrance to deliver it. I mean they were teenagers when everything happened....

He trailed off for a moment and I let him have the moment as he collected his thoughts.

"I have to believe they would have been heavily influenced by their mother and the people around them..." he said again his voice trailing off.

"Mike," I said causing him to look at me. "I believe that you are right to some extent. They would have been very heavily influenced, but they were not entirely innocent. Would you sit here while I read it? If you feel you need to let me read it by myself, I understand."

He made no move for a moment, then he stood and bent over to kiss me.

"I love you," he told me. "I think I need to sit with you as you read it."

"Okay Hun," I replied and picked up the letter. Mike doesn't have the neatest handwriting in the world, but it was legible. Having gotten to know my husband well over the years, looking at the words I could see that his writing had actually improved since we met.

I knew Mike kept a journal, writing in it at least once a week. In fact, he wrote so much that there were several volumes in his study, he had often let me know I was welcome to read them. But it was a cathartic exercise for him in helping him to process his demons.

I looked at him and smiled, then gave my attention to the letter my husband had written to his children.

Leo, John, Matilda,

I hope that this letter finds you all well and that you are all healthy.

I know that it has been several years and by now you're all adults and from what I understand you have families of your own. That you have families of your own, is one of the few things that does make me smile when thinking about my former life.

I hope that you can understand that it has taken a long time for me to get to a place where I am open to starting to communicate with the three of you. Please understand that until recently I fought daily with what happened and what you, your mother, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles along with various other people did to me. You all hurt me so badly that I could not function if I thought about any of you for any length of time.

When you saw Victoria and I in the city a few years ago, I understand that all of you just wanted to say you were sorry, but as you witnessed, I still had a lot of anger and I was not in a place where I could just suddenly speak to you. I am in a better place now and I think that I can start to communicate.

Please understand that I will only be open to talking to the three of you, and I need you to respect that it will be on my terms. Slowly and with a lot of deliberation. I do not want to talk to any other members of your family. You let them know that is my decision and if any of you try to go around me then I will cease communication with all three of you immediately and forever.

The only reason that I am reaching out is that I want to believe that as my children and the three of you being teenagers during that time that you were unduly influenced by everyone around you. If you had not been my children, I would never have even bothered to go this far. Understand that I do not forgive you for what you did to me, but I am open to beginning communication that could lead to something.

The three of you need to know that, yes, Victoria and I are married and we have twin girls, perhaps one day I will let them meet you, however right now they are innocent of the past and I would like to keep it that way until Victoria and I are satisfied that they can handle what happened all those years ago.

For the moment I would ask that you reply in letters, if you want to reply together or individually, that's all good. But please kids, take it slow. I'm going to need a lot of time.

Hesitantly hopefully,

Your father,

Mike Other.

I finished reading the letter and I got that he was really struggling in what to write, then again, I don't know that I could have written it any better if I was in Mike's shoes. How to write to your estranged kids about the pain they caused you is not an easy topic.

"It's a good letter honey," I told him. "It gets to the point, walks through the key salient facts and gives them a path of communication."

Mike nodded.

The following day he sent the letter to Terrance to send to his kids and for the next few months, Mike started to communicate with the three of them through handwritten letters. He let me read each of the communications, it was if he was looking for validation that he was doing the right thing. I never tried to adjust what he was saying, but I always encouraged him. Within a few months, Mike started emailing with them and in return, his kids shared photos of their lives. Mike cried the first time he saw photos of Leo, with his wife and kids.

Over the course of a year, they went from letters, to email, to phone and skype calls and almost year later as the girls were approaching five years old. Mike agreed to meet with his kids.

[:::: Mike ::::]

As we approached the tavern, I was physically shaking. Victoria held my right hand while I had Tina holding my left. Maisy was holding her Mum's hand on the other side.

This meeting had taken a long time to arrange, since almost the first response to my letter the kids had been hinting at it, but to their credit, they never outright pushed for a gathering. Over the last few months I got to the place where I felt we could meet in person without me breaking down.

Victoria, the girls and I had flown into Perth last night and I had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning. Victoria was the most understanding that I had ever seen her, she constantly told me how much she loved me and told me it was going to be alright. The logical part of me knew that, the emotional side of me was wracked with emotions from hope and love, to anger and disgust. My brain kept playing back the scene in court where Matilda had thrown the red paint at me.

As we walked into the tavern, I saw Terrance, Constance, Mary and Garlin sitting at a table. They waved briefly and silently communicated Good Luck. I then turned my attention to a large group of tables on the other side of the large open tavern area.

As we approached the table, they all stood. The looks on their faces ranged from scared too hopeful. Having talked with them on video conferences several times did nothing to allay the emotions that I was feeling, and I could assume theirs as well.

"Hi," my voice croaked out.

"Dad," Matilda replied, quietly. I opened my arms and suddenly my oldest daughter was sobbing against my shirt. Moments later I felt my sons also wrap their arms around us and the four of us stood there emotional wrecks as everyone else watched.

After a few minutes we broke contact, wiped our faces and moved to sit down at the table. I was for the first time introduced to my children's partners and my three grandchildren.

After an hour, Terrance, Constance, Garlin and Mary came and joined us and we spent the afternoon sharing stories about nothing of substance. Overall, with the exception of one small conversation it was a good afternoon getting reacquainted. None of us wanted to go too deep and I was happy with that.

The only sticky point was when Matilda and her husband Rory, announced that they were pregnant.

"We wanted to tell you first Dad, until today no one else knew, not even Mum," she told the assembled crowd.

"Mattie," I replied. "It's alright, just because I don't want anything to do with your mother, doesn't mean you need to keep things from her."

With that my daughter broke down, Leo jumped in.

"Sorry Dad," Leo said sadly. "We weren't going to say anything because you don't want to know, but none of us have seen to Mum in over three years."

My eyes went wide in surprise.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I thought..."

Leo and John both shook their heads. Matilda just looked sad.

"Dad," John said. "The last time we spoke to Mum was after we saw you that time and you broke down. She's still married to that prick Stephen, and both of them still see you as..."

"Murder Mike..." I concluded the conversation, as my son was unable to say the name.

All three, plus their partners nodded sadly.

"They know you were framed. However, they continue to demean you because it eases their own guilt about their affair," John concluded.

"This is something we wanted to wait a while before talking about..." John told us.

"Its..." I started to say then swallowed. I could feel a sense of panic and I could feel Victoria squeeze my hand while Constance and Mary gave me concerned looks. Then I looked over to the kids play area and I saw my girls playing with their nieces and nephews, something twelve months ago I never would have thought would happen.

"It's alright," I said, sighing. "We're going to have to talk about this at some point. I've got to stop acting like a fractured piece of glass that is threatening to break every time I hear something about my old life."

I looked at my three oldest children.

"I don't need to hear about everything, but why three years?" I asked quietly, not trusting my own voice. I looked at Victoria and she gave me the slightest of nods never letting go of my hand.

Leo sighed and took the lead as the oldest.

"Dad, even before you were exonerated, Leo, Mattie and I were already feeling bad. We regretted our actions regardless of what happened. You raised us better than that." He said, a note of remorse strong in his tone.

"When your letters came in from prison, Mum and Stephen never gave them to us, they returned them and constantly belittled you, calling you Mur.... that name.

"When you were exonerated, we were happy because we thought that we would be able to say we were sorry. Of course, we knew it wouldn't be easy, even as teenagers we knew some of the things we did were pretty disgusting, but we always thought we would be able to apologise."

He hesitated and Matilda took over.

"We never expected you to cut us out altogether." Matilda said, only just holding back years of tears. "We expected you would be upset, but we were your children, we expected that you would want to scold us, scream at us. You know. Do the things to us we did to you.

"As time went by, we grew desperate, but also Mum and Stephen became more bitter," my oldest daughter told us. "When Aunt Patricia came back from the airport that day after seeing Victoria, Mum kind of lost it and we began to see that her and Stephen were not as innocent as they made out. That their finding each other in their grief about you was not quite the truth."

I nodded my head. Leo took over again.

"It was perhaps a month before us seeing you that first time that it came out. Mattie had tried sending another letter through Terrance," my son said nodding to my lawyer. "And we found out that Mum and Stephen had been having an affair for several months before... all our lives fell apart.

"We put our heads together with Grandpa and Grandma, Aunt Pattie, Uncle Clayton and figured out you would be coming to the board meeting of your charity. Well we figured it was the best chance to see you."

"We're sorry Dad," Matilda said tears in her eyes.

I dismissed the comment with a shaky hand and motioned for them to continue.

"We confronted Mum again after that," Leo told us. "And both her and Stephen continued to talk about how pathetic you were, that you couldn't even hold yourself together after all this time for a simple conversation...

"We ended up in a yelling match with the both of them and walked out telling them that they either change their attitude towards their comments to you or we would cut them out of our lives." Leo finished.

"And that was three years ago?" I asked.

The three of them nodded.

"I've spoken on the phone to Mum perhaps a half dozen times since then," Matilda said. "There is little to no remorse so we haven't seen either of them..."

I wasn't sure what to say, so I went with the classic.

"I'm sorry."

All three of them along with their partners, and the other assembled adults around the table snorted.

"Sorry," John's wife, Jenny, said. "Mike, out of everyone here, out of everything that my husband and his family put you through, you have no right to say you're sorry."

A grumble of agreement went up around the table.

Leo's wife Gertrude, yes her name really was Gertrude, joined in.

"Don't you give us that look Mike, I agree with Jenny," she said. "You have nothing to be sorry for and none of us want you feeling sorry for what Sandra has put you through."

She looked at Victoria a moment and smiled.

"And I know we're still getting to know each other, but Mike, the way Victoria looks at you, I feel jealous of you. I love my husband, however my love feels like a pale shadow compared to how your wife looks at you. Her heart and soul are branded to you. If a slut like Sandra could cheat on you and throw you under the bus at the first opportunity, then she doesn't get to see her grandchildren."

"Mike," Rory, Matilda's husband joined in. "When I found out that Mattie was 'that' Matilda Other, I almost broke up with her..."

I noticed nods from Gertrude and Jenny, that they had similar stories.

"And interactions with Sandra and Stephen have been strained." He said, again lots of nodding.

"It has been the family's wish to reconcile with you for as long as I have known them. I can tell you that Mattie has been a mess for the last week, and I know that is not just her pregnancy.

"This has been the single dominating factor in almost every conversation that your children and us as their spouses have had over the years, Jen, Gertie and I have had to deal with a lot. And none of us are particularly sad that we have nothing to do with Sandra. But we are over the moon that we're getting the opportunity to sit with Victoria and you right now.

I felt Victoria lean on me in empathy.

"Thank you..." I said emotion taut in my chest. "If I'm honest I never thought I would be sitting here. I... I didn't think I would be able to. I'm sorry if my 'sorry' was put in the wrong place. Mine was less about sorry for the two of them. And more for the loss of the relationship. I know what it is like to lose those relationships."

The rest of the afternoon passed by pleasantly, and by the time we left, a good chunk of the anger I had at my kids had evaporated. We all promised to get together again soon and vowed to continue talking and working through our issues. None of us had any illusions that we still had a long way to go and the kids knew they were the only three that were getting any measure of forgiveness at this point.

Later that evening, Victoria and I put two excited, but very tired twin girls to bed and I found her out on the balcony of the hotel room with a glass of wine. Knowing this was her place to think, I poured a glass and joined her.

"Penny for your thoughts?" I asked my wife.

For a few moments Victoria said nothing, just staring at the traffic. I was about to ask if she heard me when she spoke, very quietly.

"Mike, you know that I love you more than my life itself, yes?" she asked me.

Slightly hesitating, I responded.

"Yes?"

"And you know that I would never do anything to hurt you, or that would open old wounds right?" she asked now turning towards me.

"Yes...?" I replied, not sure where she was going.

"Well..." she replied. "Today, I felt something new, like another part of you had been restored. Just seeing you with Leo, John and Matilda left me so happy for you, and I was wondering..."

"What is it beautiful, you've got something in your head, tell me?" I asked quietly.

"I'd like to invite them all home for Christmas?" she blurted out the statement. She had thought it would be hard for me, but I just laughed and she looked at me.

As I looked at my wife I smiled. "Its alright my darling wife, I was kind of thinking something similar. But let's get Terrance to write up a privacy agreement, I don't want anyone else knowing where we live, alright?"

If you have never had an Aussie beach Christmas in Queensland you have never lived. Sure people talk about the romance of eggnog around a fire. But when you have a clear hot day, where you and your family can walk to the beach and pitch a gazebo, we pitched three. Then enjoy the kids running backwards and forwards between the water while the adults enjoy a few drinks, eating lots of platters, prawns, cold meats, mangos, salads, and lots of Christmas cheesecake and pavlova's. Well let's just say you haven't truly lived.

Like our first meeting in Perth, months before, the conversation started awkward between Leo, John, Matilda and myself when they arrived. Their partners were certainly wowed by the place and the kids were screaming throughout the place within moments of arriving, my twin daughters leading their nieces and nephews on a merry chase. We decided they could call them cousins due to age, down hallways and to show them rooms inside, their trampoline and treehouse outside, and everything in between.

That afternoon it was just us, me, my family and my kids with their families, and after getting a few drinks we all walked down to the beach.

"Dad?" Matilda asked.

We were all walking on the harder sand towards the water, the waves washing over our feet now and then. The kids were by now soaked to the bone, having 'accidently' fallen over as waves hit them. Before us was the gentle curve of the beach and a slight misty haze in the distance as the spray from the surf caught the afternoon sun in the distance.

"mmmhmmm," I replied, absently watching one of the constant parade of cargo ships in the distance make it's way down the coast towards port. I looked at my oldest daughter, her expression was one of sadness.

"So many years lost..." she lamented. "I know we have all said it before, but Dad, I'm sorry."

I went to stop her, sure things were slow in reconnecting, but Matilda put her hand in mine and stopped me.

"No dad, I need to say this," I took a moment and nodded.