The confession

“Is he coming?”
“He is already downstairs! Just a quick check through security and he’ll be with us.”
“Ohh. I can’t believe Jaime said he would come. ” The frail unkempt man sat up in his bed. “Thank you.” 
He glanced around the room and locked onto a pile of magazines. He struggled to tidy them on the table next to him. Laying them neatly on top of one another fanned out, at first, before deciding to hide them completely, placing them in the drawer next to him. 
“That’s okay, Mr Paterson. I can see you are a little nervous. It’s been a long time since you saw him, huh?”
“Oh, Uhh, yeah. Almost twenty-five years.”
“Wow, that’s a long time. Let me get those off you. I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to run anywhere.”
The officer slotted his keys into the extended handcuffs keyholes, chaining Mr Paterson to the bed. 
“Thanks. I can’t stand up without this oxygen, never mind the handcuffs. I’m chained to this bed whether I want to be or not.” 
“Let me at least give your wrists some respite.” 
“Thank you, Officer?”
“Call me John.”
“Thank you, John. Not many people are kind these days.”
“Your welcome, Mr Paterson.”
“Oh, and please call me David.”
“David. Is there anything else you need?”
He shook his head and offered a grateful smile. 
“Okay, I’ll be outside to let him in. Give me a call if you need anything.”
After ensuring the door was fully closed behind him, John sat by his colleague, who was reading a newspaper opposite. 
“That guy doesn’t seem like he has got a bad bone in his body.” 
His colleague's face scrunched up as he looked at him. “They all try and give this false impression. I wouldn’t believe it. That's how this crazy mother serial killer everyone is talking about is getting away with it. Hiding in plain sight. These people are born evil but they hide it well.” He said in a thick southern accent. 
John furrowed his brow, followed by a roll of his eyes. 
A tall man turned the corner in a long black duffel coat, black t-shirt and jeans and dark brown boots. 
John and his colleague stood to attention. 
“Hello. Jaime, is it?”
The tall man avoided eye contact and nodded. 
“Okay, well, your father is”
“Don’t call him that,” he grumbled. 
“Uhh, okay, Mr Paterson is waiting for you. He can’t leave the bed, so don’t be alarmed if he moves. We will be just outside the door if you need us.”
Jaime nodded once. 
The door opened. 
David’s heart raced. The breathing exercises the nurse taught him hadn’t worked. He started wheezing as quietly as he could. 
Jaime walked in, avoiding eye contact and stood by the window, gazing out at the city below in silence. 
John nodded to David, and David mirrored it before he closed the door, leaving just David and Jaime in the room. 
The silence was deafening.
Only the intrusive beeping of the vitals monitor and the occasional burst of oxygen shot through the tubes into David’s nose rang out. 
Like a game of chess, they both hesitated to speak first. David knew it had to be him. 
“Thank you for coming. I didn’t think you would.”
Silence. 
“You don’t look at all like I expected.”
Silence. 
The tension suffocated David. He carried on. 
“You were once this cute little kid in your toy story pyjamas. Now, look at you, a fully grown man with stubble.”
“Things change. You get older.”
Progress. Not a positive response but at least an answer. 
“So, how have you been, Jaime?”
“Don’t you dare use my name.”
“I named you. Why don’t you want me to use your name?”
“How can you even say that? Have you forgotten what happened?”
“No,” David paused. Tears welled up. “it’s haunted me every day for the last twenty-five years. I lost my best friend and my son that day.”
“What do you want? Sympathy? You did it. You killed my mother and ruined my life!”
David stared at Jaime, puzzled, and then began uncontrollably coughing. 
He reached for the handkerchief on the table next to him. 
Feeling like his lungs had finally caved, he finished coughing into the handkerchief and stared at the blood seeping into the cotton. He folded it over and hid it under his duvet. 
“I saved your life.” He gasped out. 
“You would say anything to save your skin, though, wouldn’t you?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what? The years of counselling I had to take. Or maybe, the years of bullying I’ve suffered because of what you did!”
David is confused by the anger and hatred Jaime has held against him. 
He had guessed that his son hadn’t wanted to visit him because he couldn’t bare to see the sight of him in a jumpsuit. 
But not the detestation bleeding out of his eyes as he stares at David. 
“What do you remember about that night?”
Jaime’s nostrils flared then he replied. “Whatever you told the police. ”
David remembered reading about post-traumatic amnesia in his psych class in college. He had never seen an actual case of it. 
David gulped the saliva buildup in his heavy throat. 
“Maybe, that’s for the best.”
“What? Why are you talking in riddles?” Jaime bit. 
“Listen, I’m sorry for asking you to visit. I just wanted to see you one last time before I go. And all I wanted to say is that I love you, my son.”
“No, don’t you call me that, you murderer!”
David tried to hold his nerve and but a heavy tear began to run down his face. 
“If you’d like to leave now.” 
“Why? Because you are afraid to hear the truth.”
David mouthed something inaudible. 
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Please leave.”
“No, go on, say it!”
David's chest tightened as he wiped the tears from his eyes and glanced out the window adjacent to his bed. The best view he has seen in twenty-five years. 
“I’m waiting,” Jaime grunted. 
David cleared his throat and he turned from the view to look at Jaime. 
“What do you remember about that night, Jaime? Not what the reports said.”
“You. Getting taken away in the cop car.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
“So what are you trying to imply, David?” He said, using his name, trying to be intentionally cutting. 
“Nothing. It was nice seeing you. I think you should go.”
“SAY IT!” He exploded.
David jumped at Jaime’s outburst. Something caught his throat. He began coughing uncontrollably. 
The door flung open. 
John burst in with his overweight southern partner glancing over his shoulder. 
“Is everything okay in here?”
Jaime calmed himself and glanced out the window again, avoiding the officer's gaze.
David struggled to regain his breath and waved his hand. “Everything’s fine, thank you.”
John stared at Jaime, trying to gauge his anger, then at David.
“Okay, we are just outside.”
Jaime turned to face David once more after the door was closed.
“I don’t know if you want to hear what I’m about to say.”
Jaime stared through David, not at him. 
“I just want you to know I didn’t want to say anything.”
“Just say whatever the hell it is you want to say.”
“You and your mother had been arguing a lot. She struggled to control you. Do you remember that?”
Silence again. 
“I tried to tell her it was a phase, it would pass, but it never did. It caused arguments between us. We never used violence as a punishment. So when your mother struck you that first time, I lost my temper.” 
“So you stabbed her?”
David broke down in tears. “No.”
“You stabbed her over and over, didn’t you? The police report said seven stab wounds.”
“No, I could never have hurt her.” David watched a nurse pass by the door. “I didn’t kill your mother, Jaime. You did.”
Jaime scoffed. “You’re lying!”
“No, Jaime, I’m sorry, I’m not. I had come home from work and found her dead in the kitchen. You sat rocking in the corner of the room, the bloody kitchen knife still in your hand.”
Jaime stumbled backwards and held one hand to his tight chest, the other out to the wall trying to regain his balance. 
“I knew I couldn’t lose the both of you that night. You were vulnerable. I don’t know what would have happened to you. So I cleaned you up, took the knife out of your hand and called the police. I told them I had found her like that while I hid you away from them.” He wiped another tear running down his face. “The police immediately suspected me and took me away. I denied it at first but when they began to suspect you. I confessed to it.”
“I remember.” Jaime cried. 
“You were just a child. My son. I didn’t want you to suffer in prison.”
David struggled to hold out his hand to comfort a teary Jaime. 
“Do you forgive me?”
Jaime saw the offer and began to approach and stretched out his hand. 
He hesitated as got within an inch of his father's hand. His posture changed. 
He pulled his hand away and stood upright. 
His eyes become focused. 
A sinister smile drew wide across his face. 
“Of course, I remember everything that happened that night, you fool.” Jaime chuckled as he slapped his father's hand down to the bed. 
“What?” 
“Do you think I would forget the best night of my fucking life?” Jaime said as he walked up next to His dad's bedside, where his oxygen bottles rest. “The night where I finally got rid of that bitch once and for all.”
David’s mouth opened, and his words stalled. 
“You see, father, that night, mother caught me trying to dissect a live squirrel or bird. I can’t quite remember. Naturally, she didn’t approve, like always. She screamed in my face and struck me. She threatened to turn me in. So I took the knife and stabbed her seven times. For every year that she had the pleasure of spending with me.” Jaime smiled. 
“Oh, my god. You are a monster.”
“Thank you, father. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Why?” David's voice cracked. 
“Hmm, I don’t know to be honest. It just felt right. Like finding that perfect leather glove.” 
Jaime began to fiddle with the oxygen tank behind the bed. “And thanks to you ‘dad’ I’ve not had to stop my little hobby. You should be proud. I’m famous. Have you seen all the papers lately?”
David's breathing became more strained with each passing second. 
“But now we have to say goodbye for the last time. I had always waited for my opportunity to come back for you, so, as you can imagine, when I got the invitation to visit you here, I couldn’t believe my luck.” Jaime clapped his hands together once. A smile drew across his face again. 
The machine began to beep louder. 
Jaime could see the alarm was about to strike on the monitor. He turned it off by the socket. 
“I’m sorry, Elizebeth.” David strained out, staring up at the ceiling. A final tear ran down his face.
Jaime watched the life drain out his eyes, tapped his father twice on the hand before he collected himself, hunched over to avoid unwanted attention and walked out of the room. 
“My father has fallen asleep. He’s requested to be left alone to rest.” Jaime’s grunted to the two officers outside. 
“Okay, no problem. Listen, friend, I just wanted to tell you how very excited he was to see you again.”
“Me too. I waited twenty-five years.” 
Jaime, not meeting their eye, nodded once and walked down the hallway.
The manic smile grew wide across his face as he walked away.