Unforgiven

Part 1

By Heather

What I’ve felt
What I’ve know
Never shined through in what I’ve shown
Never be
Never see
Won’t see what might have been*

Danny

I sit here, alone, behind my mother’s massive oak desk, feeling overwhelmingly dwarfed by the sheer size of it. The job it entails scares me slightly, the crushing responsibility heavy on my shoulders.

Five days, I have sat here, behind this desk. Struggling to hold everything together is proving to be a daunting challenge. Even though I was trained my entire life for this, I still feel slightly out of my element here. I have tried to catch up on months of business I have missed: perusing stocks, bonds, and everything else we’re involved in…well, it’s been hectic.

Yet, despite the various bills that sit here waiting for me to pay off, the dozens of phone calls I have to make every hour, the countless orders I still have to carry out, the adrenaline is pumping in my veins. It exhilarates me. Having dozens of employees at my beck and call, it’s oddly intoxicating. I’m in my element; I’m doing one of the only things I really know how to do.

For five days I have managed to hold the Santos family and empire together. Five days, only five days have passed since Michelle was declared guilty…only to be set free after Vanessa confessed and turned my mother in at the same time. It was an amazing moment. As we sat in the courtroom, tears of fear and confusion were transformed in mere seconds to tears of joy and relief, as Vanessa and Matt burst into. I have never felt such blessed release.

Yet it was a two-faced coin for me. My wife was free and innocent, but my mother was the guilty. She was the one who set her up. She tried to send the woman I love to jail and probably even hoped to see Michelle die for something she did not do. It’s something I’m not sure I can ever forgive her for.

When Ray came to me after the hearing, I already knew what he was going to say. With my mother in jail, there was no one to head the family. And that is a dangerous thing. Many of the families already think us weak…with Mick’s death, my marriage to the…you know…and my eventual departure from the family…

I already knew what he was going to ask of me. And I was torn. It was a hard decision, to come back, to take over, to place Michelle and myself in that kind of danger again. But I know if I didn’t…we would ultimately be in as much danger as ever. Since the family is still left with debts to be paid, to collect on, and on and on…collectors would eventually look to me anyway. And it would not be pretty.

I had no choice.

Unfortunately, Michelle didn’t see it the way I did.

….

What I’ve felt
What I’ve know
Turn the pages
Turn the stone…
Sick and tired
I stand alone

Michelle

I still can’t quite grasp what has happened to me. The past five days have literally been a blur…the trial was…well I don’t even remember the trial. I know I was there. I know I sat through it all, listening to everything that happened, but I don’t think I could repeat a word that was said. All I know is that I finally felt safe and whole when that judge said I was free.

The way I felt then, kinda reminded me of those first few months with Danny. I’m not exactly sure how to explain it…I can only express the emotions in meaningless words, words that don’t accurately say exactly how I felt. Words like confused, terrified, edgy…

…guilty.

I know I didn’t kill Ben, but somehow, I always felt sort of guilty about it. Like there was something I should have done, but didn’t do.

Sitting in that jail cell, day after day…well I did a lot of thinking. They were mostly thoughts of my life, my mother, my father, my brother and…

Danny. I thought about Danny the most. How things started for us…how we have ended up….

Of course, I thought of all the good times we have shared. Our wedding at Laurel Falls…our adventures in San Cristobel…everything we’ve been through…it’s all special to me.

But now…things have changed. With Carmen in jail, Danny has become the head of la familia and the safety I felt I had just claimed was pulled out from under me, sending me tumbling through the darkness to encounter all those old feelings again.

The confusion…the terror…the edginess…

The guilt.

I’ve been sitting up here all day in our room. I haven’t really been doing anything. I took a shower, I shaved, I washed my hair and body, it feels soooo good after bathing in those nasty bathrooms at the prison. I wrapped myself in my most luxuriously bathrobe, after getting Olga to heat it for me…so that it would be warm for me. It might be terrible to be spoiling myself this way, but it just feels so nice to do normal things like this again that I just can’t help it.

I talked to Rick briefly. He’s been so worried about me. Most of the conversation was one-sided…mostly me telling him I was okay. I talked to Abby, other one-sided conversation… mostly her telling me I was okay.

But I’m not okay.

*Unforgiven-Metallica, the Black Album
**Unforgiven II-Metallica, Re-Load

Part 2

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