Chapter Four

~ Ste ~

You had pictured what he might look like now, but seeing him in the flesh makes you realise that you weren't fully prepared for it. He looks his age; he looks drained, and his once brunette mop of hair is now white, as is his trademark moustache.

In theory he's a whole world away from the man he was when he left you behind. And yet the second your eyes meet his you have the overwhelming feeling that you've come home.

It does nothing to change all the other reasons you had for coming to see him, but it does make you momentarily forget them.

You blurt out his name on instinct, shutting your mouth the instant it leaves your lips. After that, Cheryl leaves with her husband and you start things off by confronting him over the obvious.

It doesn't take long for the conversation to get heated, and now, just as you're trying to leave, he stops you with the three words that always ruin any chance you have of moving on.

"I love ye," Brendan is saying, his tone desperate. "Please don't leave me again."

You turn to face him and you will yourself not to cry. You won't let him see you break down.

"I never left you, Brendan," You reply. "It was you that pushed me out of your life. I begged you not to do it; I told you how much I loved you but it wasn't enough to stop you from leaving me. So don't you dare ask me to stay. I don't owe you anything."

He closes his eyes as if in defeat, and you know that this should be the moment in which you walk out.

"But I still love you, too."

You hadn't planned to say it. Maybe you thought you could end this meeting with those words and have it be the end.

But this is Brendan Brady, and you can't declare your love for him all over again and then just walk away.

You stand there watching as he opens his eyes. He looks dazed, like he thinks he might be dreaming. If he thinks you're going to repeat yourself, he's mistaken.

"Steven, I..."

"Don't say anything," you cut him off. "Please just...don't."

His face clears, his expression blank. "If I stop talking, will ye stay?"

You're still angry, but at the same time it aches inside to see him so vulnerable. It must have taken a lot to make Brendan beg, so you relent and move away from the door.

You are the one with the power here, and yet you feel uneasy. Everything about this is so fragile, and it won't take much more to make you break.

But this silence is killing you.

"Why didn't you tell me you'd been released?" you blurt out before your brain has the chance to think it through. "I don't get it – you got so panicky when I tried to leave just now, but if I hadn't come here with Cheryl, you wouldn't have even bothered with me."

Just minutes ago, you were insisting that he keep quiet; but now you need answers.

And Brendan looks at you in such a way that suddenly you wish you could get a glimpse inside his head. He looks like a child who's just been told their favourite television programme has been cancelled - only worse.

"Is that really what ye think? That I ignored ye because I'd stopped caring? Or that I'd forgotten ye?"

You don't answer. It's obvious you don't need to confirm that this was exactly what you were thinking.

"I told ye to stay away when I got put inside so ye could live a better life without me. I wasn't planning on messing it all up by getting in touch after all this time."

A better life. The words roll around your head, almost mocking you. Because yeah, your life was so much better the moment he left it. As if Brendan's absence had been able to erase your feelings for him.

It should have been better, after all the grief he'd caused you; but it just didn't work out that way. You were in self-destruction mode for the first few months, until something worse happened and you finally had to get your act together.

"Do you honestly think that all my problems back then revolved around you? If you think my life just fell into place after you went – if you're using that to ease any guilt - then you're fooling yourself."

He seems to be able to detect something in your voice. He knows the sarcasm is about more that just how you coped with his loss. Something big happened that he's not been privy to, and you can see he's worked that much out just by the look he's giving you.

"Tell me," Brendan demands in a gentle voice, and for half a second you're tempted to. It's not exactly a secret, not back in the village anyway; but you've never even shared this part of your past with Cheryl, and telling Brendan isn't something you feel ready for. It's a subject that carries far too much weight than you can cope with today.

So instead you confess something less traumatic.

"I went back to dealing for a while."

You feel like a fraud as a father when you say this – and as a grandfather. The sixty year old man you are now just doesn't fit with the cocky, drug-dealing idiot you were twice over in your younger years.

Confessing to it provokes another memory for you, and it's one that's written all over Brendan's face in shock and disbelief.

You're a hypocrite.

"Steven...drugs? After everything ye..."

"Yes, I know," you stop him, unable to hear him say the words.

After everything you said back then.

Once upon a time, you had made this man promise you that his involvement in anything dodgy was over for good. And for his part, despite what had been thrown at him towards the end, Brendan had at least kept his promise on that front.

The thoughts going through your head are conflicting. You feel embarrassed at the reminder that you went down that dark road a second time. You had had a choice, after all - you'd had your own business. But at the time you were just too broken to appreciate what you had.

The other part of you – the angry part – resents the fact that Brendan is standing here judging you. He lost the right to any opinion the second he cut you out of his life.

"Why?" he's asking you now. His voice is weak; he sounds as though he's struggling to cope with the things you've put inside his head.

You wonder if the way he's feeling matches even a fraction of the turmoil going on inside your own the day you were ripped away from him.

It's this that makes you answer him flippantly, not caring how pathetic it sounds coming from a man of your age. "Why not?"

He sighs heavily and drops down into a chair. "This doesn't make sense."

"Neither does confessing to a crime you didn't commit, but you still did that, didn't you?"

Brendan ignores you. "Cheryl never said anything..."

"Yeah well, Cheryl doesn't know the half of it," you reply in a flat voice.

"What is it, Steven? What don't we know?"

You shake your head at him, that anger bubbling to the surface yet again. "You're so desperate to get some control back, aren't you?" You sneer at him. You're aware that you don't sound anything like yourself. "You just have to know everything. Never mind all those letters and visiting requests I sent, begging you to let me back in."

He squeezes his eyes shut for the second time since your arrival, and you know you could stop there but you don't want to. You want to hurt him. Decades of bottled up frustration is spilling out of you at too fast a rate to care.

"Well let's see if your sister told you this: me and Doug got back together."

When his face twists in pain you know your words have fulfilled their intention, but it doesn't make you feel any better for it. And Brendan's response is a world away from the emotions written all over his features.

"I'm happy for ye."

Suddenly the spite is knocked out of you, and you feel a pang of guilt for using Doug's name in this way. "He's been dead for seventeen years," you inform Brendan, looking at the floor.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"I am. I'd never be glad about anything that caused ye pain."

And it had been hard, losing Doug. You'd loved him too; and he'd stayed by your side for years, been your friend and stopped you from being lonely. Deep down of course, in your heart of hearts, you had longed to be with Brendan. But a life with Doug had promised stability, and it had served you well until he'd passed away after battling cancer.

You miss him, of course you do. But in brutal honesty you didn't love him as deeply as he loved you. His death hadn't threatened to destroy you the way you know Brendan's would have; instead it had brought loneliness back to your door. Your kids had been all grown up with their own lives to lead by then, and once again you had found yourself waking up alone in an empty flat. It had taken you right back to the days after Brendan's arrest.

When you'd grieved for Doug, it had been purely for selfish reasons. Your grief for Brendan hadn't just been about losing the man himself to prison, but also the loss of a future that had once been so close that it was within touching distance.

You may not be allowing yourself to get worked up over it, but you certainly won't be forgetting the hell you went through over him.

"What else?" Brendan's voice reminds you that he was in the middle of interrogating you.

"No. That's enough. I'm not playing along with this any more."

"With what?"

"You, trying to keep a conversation going when it's all just pointless. I've said what I came here to say. Just because I can't stop loving you doesn't mean there's still something between us."

He doesn't get up, just watches you, waiting again for you to edge back towards the door. You haven't moved yet.

"If that's true, Steven, then why bother coming here at all? Ye can be as angry as ye like with me, but that only proves there is something there. It's not going to go away just because ye turned up to give me a few home truths."

He's right. You hate him for it, but there it is.

"Whatever. I don't care." Except that you do care, and you sound sulkier with every sentence. "Just forget I was ever here, Brendan."

This time, when you turn and walk out of the house, he doesn't utter a word.

Despite yourself, in a stupid, confusing sort of way you wish he would come after you.

~ Brendan ~

He still loves you.

You're not deluded enough to think it's that simple – the man's head must be in a mess - but it's a comfort to hear those words after all this time.

And then, minutes later, finding out that Steven had gone back to Douglas after your imprisonment cuts straight through you. You don't want to believe it, but then what gives you the right to be put out by the news? He had been ready and willing to stand by you until you had taken the choice away from him. You'd wanted him to live his life, and that's what he'd done, as best as he could.

In all these years you've never let yourself dwell on the thought of Steven being with another man, but you'd known it was happening, because how could it not?

But funnily enough, you'd never entertained the idea that he would reunite with the yank. It's probably just as well, because had you known, you would have been obsessing over it for the rest of your prison sentence.

You force yourself to tell him you're happy for him, but of course what you really mean is that you're happy if he is. And surely he wouldn't have come to see you if he is?

The revelation that Douglas is dead soon sheds some light on that front. You wonder whether you'd ever have seen Steven again had his husband still been alive.

He won't be quizzed any more after what he's already confessed about the drug-pushing, and then when he dismisses his feelings for you, you try one last time to make him see that you'll always be connected to each other.

You can see in his eyes that he knows, but still he walks out. You stop yourself from running after him, because surely it won't help when he doesn't seem to have a clue what he wants.

When the door opens some minutes later, you almost jump. You were too absorbed in self-pity to consider that your sister would be back eventually.

"Brendan? Ye alone?"

Yes. And you suppose you should be used to it by now. You've been alone for years, why should today feel any different?

Because Steven was here; had dangled a slither of hope in front of you and then disappeared so quickly that you'd be forgiven for thinking it was all in your mind.

You look up to meet Cheryl's gaze, but it's not just Nate that's returned alongside her. She seems to have developed a habit of springing surprise visitors on you. The younger man that's standing in the doorway has your eyes, and they're staring over at you in quiet, appraising wonder.

You instantly get to your feet. "Declan?"

You have to question it out loud, even though there's no need to. That's your eldest boy over there, only he no longer fits that particular title in his sharp suit and tie. He's done well for himself, has Deccy – even if Cheryl hadn't been keeping him up to date, that much would be obvious.

"What happened to Ste?" Your sister asks casually, as if she hasn't just turned up with your estranged son in tow. Besides that, you want to gesture to the emptiness around you and glare at how obvious the answer to her question is. Steven's gone, that's what's happened. You're going to have to focus your energy on your son now. Not that you don't want to, of course.

"Ste was here?" Declan chimes in, his voice laced with surprise but not an ounce of displeasure. You look him over for a second time and feel that old paternal warmth wash over you.

Neither you or Cheryl answer him. While Nate flits past you all to head into the kitchen, she suddenly comes alive, remembering the importance of her nephew's presence here.

"We bumped into Deccy in town," she explains, starting with the obvious. "He read your letter and well, I asked him to come back and see ye. I did think it might be a bit awkward with Ste here too, mind, but..." she trails off at her friend's absence. "Is he coming back later?"

Bless her heart, maybe she actually thinks it went that well.

"No, he isn't."

Cheryl goes so pale that you now realise she genuinely hadn't foreseen any flaw in her plan to leave you and Steven alone 'to talk'. She looks incapable of finding words, like her guilt about the past is increasing ten-fold by the second.

It's Declan who breaks the silence, which is unexpected but much better than the possibility of an oblivious Nate strolling back into the lounge with the tea tray.

"Go after him."

You wonder whether you've misheard. "What?"

"I said, go after him, Dad." Dad. You've not heard the word since you were younger than he is now, and it gives you back a small amount of confidence. You don't deserve it, but here he is offering it to you. It makes you feel like you made the wrong decision in letting Steven leave you, if even this person you've let down more times than you can count thinks you should fight for him.

"But what about..." you wave your hand around the space between you; father and son. "There are things to say. There's a lot to say."

"I'll still be around for that," Declan informs you. His voice is patient, but there's an undertone there that suggests he won't be doing any of this lightly. You won't be getting away with anything when the time for discussion arrives.

But it's the promise of his words that you cling to.

"Go," he orders you again.

A surge of adrenaline rushes through your seventy year old body as you nod, slipping past the both of them and out to follow your heart.

Your feet know exactly where you have to go even before your brain does.