Three For A Wedding

Chapter Seven

Riley walked into his uncle's house and went into the study where his uncle and his father in law to be were sitting talking.

“Ah Riley, how is Cecelia?” David asked as Riley entered the room.

“Still blissfully unawares but you two now need to sort something, I am about to marry the love of my life and I do not want to go into this marriage holding on to this secret you have forced unto me.” He told them without holding back. He was very angry with both of them and how it had all been handled, and every time they discussed it. “I want to marry her without any secrets. The two of you are and were very high up officials who should have done this a whole lot better than you did. Uncle, you’re a world-class detective for God sake, there must have been a better way to do this, there is a better way to have done this.”

“There weren’t fifteen years ago Riley,” David said with a sigh. “We have so much more technology these days which we didn’t back then, Technology was just starting to come to light fifteen years ago. As the years went on it got harder and harder to bring him back to life.”

“Well, now you need to find a way to bring him back to life, without causing too much hurt or harm to the woman you have both said you love and would do anything for.” Riley scoulded making the two men look to the floor with guilt. He had told them this so many times it was getting old. It would take a long while before he would forgive either of them for what they had done to Cecelia and Paige.

“About that.” Marty started. He hesitated a moment before he continued with what he had to say. “I think you may be right, I think it is time I came out of the shadows now. I have been mulling it over, I don’t think we will trip her up any other way. If she knows I am still alive, she will panic. It’s taken your persistence and your engagement to my daughter to make me realise it was the right thing to do.”

“You need to speak to Cecelia first,” Riley said. “Do not let her find out from someone else please, especially not her mother. Her pregnancy is at a high-risk stage, and I don’t want anything to happen to her. She is your first port of call, bring her here if you have to, but she and Paige are your priority in this. She has to know before you do anything else. And you two will explain to her how I have come to know and why I couldn’t tell her, I will not take the blame for this.”

“We agree, it's another thing we have been discussing,” David said, it wasn’t often he let his nephew get away with being so angry at him, but this was something even he knew he had to tread carefully around, Cecelia had been through a lot over the last six months and it wasn’t something he wanted to add to her stresses. This whole ordeal over the last few months had been a strain on them all and his wife had started to notice Riley’s absence from their home and started to question what was going on. Riley had been so angry with him over it all that he hadn’t visited for his weekly dinner and catch up for some time.

“It needs to be done carefully, and it needs to be planned properly, I need to make sure she has her friends close by and that I’m there also,” Riley demanded. He wasn’t going to let them off lightly with this one. It did annoy him how stupid they have been with all of this. “She is a strong woman, but she is also very vulnerable when it comes to her sister and you Martin.”

“Sally will be enough,” David said sternly, knowing what the two pathologists were like, and he also knew that they would need to deal with Sally's ire as well, and he knew that was going to be ten times worse than Riley’s. Sally wasn’t a relation so wouldn’t hold back.

“No,” Riley said making the two of them look at him in surprise. ”Not only will Sally and I be there, but so will Beth and also so will be Charles De-Goulash and Gerry McIntyre. At least I know she will be in the best hands. So these people need to be informed. Charles is her best friend and also her obstetrician. Beth grew up with her and knew what she went through when you apparently died. Gerry, well Gerry he just has to be there trust me on that.”

“Who are these two?” Marty asked confused when Riley mentioned Cecelia’s two Gay best friends.

“Gerry and Charles are good friends of Cecelia, Gerry is the Head Consultant in Accident and Emergency and Charles is the Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. They have been looking after Cecelia during her pregnancy and also beforehand when she was attacked.” David explained. “It was their report that put Wayne Johnson away.”

“They were in university with her, and they have been very close ever since. Charles is the only person I know who can trick her into talking about things she has bottled up. They have a very close relationship. He treats her like his little sister.” Riley explained. “They are the ones I trust to make sure she gets through this without too much strain on her.”

“Then I fully agree on them being there, especially in her condition,” Marty said. “Can they be trusted?”

“I wouldn’t have cared if you had agreed or not, they would be there. You two should not have kept this from her, things could have been different if you hadn’t done this. She may have escaped her mother sooner, Paige wouldn’t have suffered the way she had, and I may not have lost those years between her leaving for uni and us becoming reacquainted. Yes, I trust them with my life. They would never let anything happen that would hurt Cecelia. Wish I could say the same about the two of you.”

“Riley, I appreciate that this is hard for you, but we did what we thought best at the time,” David said, his tone deep with anger. He loved his nephew and he realised that he was angry with them but he was starting to get annoyed with the dressing down they had been getting.

“And now my fiancée and I are sole custodians of her little sister until she is eighteen and Cecelia has nightmares on a nightly basis over either the fact of her mother beating her or her sister, as well as the nightmares she still has of what happened to her with Johnson and the day you supposedly died,” Riley said through gritted teeth, both men looked at him surprised. “I don’t look this tired all the time because of my job you know. My fiancée has recurring night terrors, which most nights I have to wake her from. Some nights she fights me in my sleep, and you don’t know how difficult it is, especially with her being pregnant. It breaks my heart, and some days I can’t roll my shirt sleeves up because of the bruising from fighting with her to calm her down and wake her up.”

“I hadn’t realised it was so bad,” Marty said quietly. He knew his daughter had suffered, and it had been this that had brought him out of hiding, but he hadn’t noticed how her strength was hiding her true feelings.

“It wasn’t until the incident with Paige a few months back that she was scared her mother is going to get to them somehow. She is scared for both our unborn children and her sister. She doesn't care for herself, but the other three she is petrified about. She needs her father now more than she has ever needed him.” Riley said tersely. “She’s so strong, she is very good at hiding her worries and troubles, but it's getting too much for her now, so this will go how I want it to go, as I only have Cecelia’s best interests in mind. We can’t even be happy over the fact they have announced our engagement in the paper because the first thing that comes to her mind is that her mother will see it.”

“We will sort this out,” Marty said, his eyes filled with pain. Who would have thought that a split-second decision that had been made many years ago could end up causing so much hurt and pain this far forward?

“Right,” Riley said, looking at his watch. “I have to go now, my sister's plane will be landing soon and I need to be there to get her. We will hash out the details when we get back. Beth needs to be brought in on it. She knows more about what went on as kids than we do, she went to school with her.”

Riley turns and leaves the two men.

“We didn’t think this through all those years back did we?” David said to Marty Somberly when Riley had left. “All I thought about was getting you out alive. I didn’t realise quite how much it would affect the girls. Cecelia is so good at hiding it all as well. She has learnt to wear a mask well.”

“I’m glad my daughter has your nephew again, I have no doubt he will protect her,” Marty said to David. “We weren’t to know it would cause this much trouble when the decision was made. But it’s time we repair what we did wrong. It’s time to get my girls and my life back.”

“Within an inch of his life,” David said, referring to his nephew, he could understand why the man was so angry with them, but what was done was done, they couldn’t change that now. “I think he would give his life up to keep her safe.”

“Just as I did.” Marty sighed. “The worst decision we ever made.”