“Mommy!” my four year old daughter’s high pitched voice screams at me as I groggily walk into my children’s room after being awakened by my ten month old son. I yell out in surprise as a large muscular hand is thrown across her thin stomach from the darkness that invades the left corner of their room. I watch in fear as a tall muscular man slowly steps out of the dark corner and into a streak of light that shines down the middle of the room. Fear rolls through my body at the sight of his recognizable face grinning at me as his large muscular hands are latched threatenly onto both of my children. Chills race quickly up and down my trembling body at the sight of his evil clear blue eyes glowing in the bright moon light that shines innocently through the closed window that lies a foot behind him. My heart dances wildly within me at the sight of him standing in my children’s bed room as anger quickly flashes through me at the thought of the threat he shows so bravely upon my children, and me.

“Trevor,” I hear myself say through a quivering voice as mixed emotions rages within me as I force myself to look up at my ex-husband of which I had ran out on over a year ago.

“I’m impressed you still remember me after all this time,” he smiles evilly as he takes a step forward to cause Shay to cry out in fear once more. My heart tightens in great anger toward the man I had once married as large tears swell in both of my children’s eyes of fear toward their own father that holds threatenly onto them.

“Let my children go, Trevor!” I yell as my anger takes over the fear that swells with in me at the sight of the fear radiating from my children.  Angrily I quickly step closer to him and I gasp in surprise and in fear as he harshly throws Shay upon Jamie’s old single bed to drag out a large black metal hand gun.

“Your children?” he questions calmly as his blue eyes dances in evil desires as he aims the gun at me while stepping a foot closer to me, “Your children? I think you are forgetting something there, Kristy, it takes two. No, you didn’t go make them all by yourself, you had a little help and that little help came from me!” I yell out in pain as he back hands me across the face with the butt of the gun, “They’re my children and they’re coming with me no matter if I have to kill you and your hick family to do it!”

“I want mommy!” Jamie, my four year old daughter, yells from Trevor’s tight grip as I glance behind him to find Shay hugging tightly onto Jamie’s yellow soft blanket, “Don’t hurt mommy!” Jamie shrieks louder as she fights with his grip only for Trevor to tighten his grip before she slowly settles down, “Let me go!”

Pain and fear throbs throughout me as tears quickly swell up in my own eyes as my mind runs wildly within me. “Don’t do this. Please Trevor,” I beg my ex-husband in fear of losing all that matters to me; my children.

I yell out in great pain as he once again back hands me across the face with the butt of the gun before placing the gun in the other hand that lies across Jamie’s thin stomach. . I gasp in surprise as he grabs a tight hold of my old holey navy blue sweat shirt to thrash me harshly against the thick wall. “This is for all the trouble you have caused me the past year and a half!” he growls before he punches me in the stomach to send pain racing up and down my body. Tears sting my eyes, not at the great pain that climbs steadily throughout my body, but at the painful flash backs that flash clearly in my head of the three years we had been married. If only I had listened to what others had said of him, I wouldn’t be here.

“Don’t do this Trevor!” I beg him again to be punched in the chest, this time to take my breath away, “Please. . .can’t we work -“

”Trevor!” I sigh in relief at hearing my younger half brother yell out in the entry way to my children’s room, “You jackass! I should have known it was you causing all this!”

“Now if it isn’t Garrett Duke coming to Kristy’s rescue as always,” Trevor laughs to shove the gun across my face again before aiming it at me, “Well, there will be no rescue today, because I am here to take my children with me, where they belong. I will do it if it takes killing you and Kristy to do so.”

Chills race quickly up and down my body as Trevor’s icy cold metal hand gun comes to rest gently upon the bare skin of my neck. Fear continues to soar within me as Trevor stares crazily at me with his hardened evil blue eyes to force flash backs to flash clearly in my head of the past, when he so often got angry and violent with me. Quickly I force myself to look away from him to glance nervously at Garrett who stands in the open door way in only his red boxers with his short dark blond hair ruffled from sleep.  Anger fills Garrett’s hard cold smokey gray-blue eyes as he nervously traces his thick long scar, that trails from the tip under his chin down his neck and up behind his right ear, with his right hand.

“Nice scar you have, Garre,” Trevor finally breaks the silence as he looks over to see Garrett tracing his brightly pale scar that sticks out from his nice tan he had gotten from working outside in the summer heat, “Kristy never tol’ me where you got it from.”

“You’ll never know,” Garrett is quick to snap back to Trevor who focuses back on me as Jamie slowly begins to struggle against his grip once again and Trevor is quick to tighten his grip to force Jamie to settle down. “Let her go Trevor…let them both go!”

“I’ll let Kristy go,” Trevor says tightening his pressure of the gun that remains pressed against my neck, “once she has agreed to hand over my children or when she lies dead here on the floor. As for Jamie and Shay…they’s coming with me no matter what!”

He begins to laugh at his own evilness and for the first time I get the strong smell of alcohol in his breath, the same smell he had came home smelling like about every night he had came home when we had been married. “Don’t do this Trevor. . .you won’t get away with it,” Garrett pleas with Trevor as he slowly takes a large step closer to us.

I gasp in surprise and in pain as Trevor abruptly drops Jamie to the floor who runs crying to Garrett as Trevor harshly, once again,  grabs a tight hold on my loose fitting sweat shirt that I wear for pajamas to forcefully shove me against the wall. Pain climbs steeply up and down my back at the pressure he forces upon my back while he tightly presses the cold gun into my right temple near my eye. ”You get back Duke, or,” Trevor threatens through clenched teeth, “or you’ll be forcing my kids to watch theirmother die right now!”

“OK Trevor, just relax,” Garrett says taking a step backwards to run into our dad, who walks in at the same time that Garrett backs up into the door way.

“Trevor Hodges!” Jeremiah, my forty-eight year old father says, his bright blue eyes flare in anger and fear.

“Well, if it isn’t Jeremiah Duke,” Trevor smiles before punching me in the stomach to force tears flooding from my eyes in great pain.

“Stop it! You’re makin’ mommy cry!” Jamie yells near my dad who picks her up to refrain her from running at Trevor and she begins to cry into my dad’s bare chest, “He’s hurtin’ mommy!”

“Put her down,” Trevor orders breathing heavily and I become nauseated by the strong smell of alcohol that is thrown in my face. Trevor watches demandingly at my father as I glare over Trevor’s shoulder to take in my ten month old son lying on Jamie’s bed, asleep on her yellow blanket. “Now!” Trevor demands as sirens begin to yell out in the distance. I yell out in fear as he once again thrashes my back harshly against the thick wall and presses the gun tighter against my face to force a gasp of fear to escape from my dad.

“What ever you say,” my dad finally says as I glance over to find him trying to force Jamie to let go of him who holds a tight grip on him. Slowly, she lets go of her grip and is set down only for her to hug onto my dad’s muscular leg for protection. “I let her go, now let Kristy go…she didn’t do nothing to you. Nothing to deserve this!”

“Think again plowboy!” Trevor spits as he back hands me across the face in his anger that seems to increase with each passing minute while he presses me tightly against the wall. Sirens continue to cry out past the closed window, growing closer by the second. “She left me. . .left me her nice little divorce papers while she took my kids! As if that wasn’t enough, she had placed a refraining order against me, so I couldn’t see my kids! They are our kids, Kristy, whether you like that or not and as me being their father, I deserve at least some custody over them, if not all! No, Jeremiah, she has done everything to me and she is getting all that she deserves!”

“Like you ever cared for them!” I snap back at him once again, “While we were married, you never once paid attention to Jamie, not alone took care of her. Why you care now?. . .You don’t care not for her or for Shay, you just here demanding them back to spite me…to get what you want, to have power over me once again. Well forget it!”

I yell out in pain as punches me in the stomach once again before back handing me across the face with the gun before pressing the gun back upon my right temple tightly. “Well be as angry as you wish, Kristian,” Trevor smiles at me, the smile I had learned to fear in the past to force more chills racing up and down my body. Suddenly he grows quiet as he watches me through his evil eyes that quickly lighten up as if he has abruptly thought of something appealing to him. “You’re just angry that I can still control you…that I will always be able to control you.”

“No. . .no,” I whimper as his eyes are filled with his evil affection as he slowly pockets the gun to press his body tightly against mine, to entrap me between him and the wall.

“Oh yes…you know you like it Kristy . . .always have. . .you just like playing hard to get, guess it’s some game you like to play,” he says breathlessly in my ear, hinting towards the past. Pressing his full body against mine, I feel his heart racing quickly within him as he is quick to force me into a long kiss.

I gasp out in surprise and in pain as Trevor is abruptly pulled off of me and thrown harshly down upon the soft carpeted floor. Tears blur my vision as I watch Garrett straddling Trevor with his muscular legs before he begins to continuously to punch him as hard as he can. My hands shake uncontrollably out of the fear and the pain that consumes me as I force myself to pull up my underwear. A long silent moment passes filled with Trevor’s gasps of pain as Garrett continues to pound angrily upon Trevor with hardened fists while Garrett’s legs block Trevor’s arms from attacking him. “I tol’ you wouldn’t get away with it…and I stick to my promises you jackass!” Garrett says through his clenched teeth of anger, sweat slowly runs down Garrett’s face, “No one treats my sister like that and gets away with it!”

I gasp in surprise as a long caring hand slowly touches my tense shoulder and I force myself to look away from Trevor as my dad pulls me into a long caring hug while he kisses my head. “It’s all over…he’s gonna go away for a long time,” my dad says in a whisper in his attempt to comfort me. Tears of pain and anger continues to run down my face as I feel my body shaking greatly in my fear and anger while I rest against my dad as painful memories continues to haunt me. Slowly I push myself back and wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweat shirt as I glare around the room. “Where’s Jamie?” I ask growing panic as the sirens grows closer, close enough to sound like they are right out side of the old house, “Where is she?”

“She’s safe…she’s with Rosa in the kitchen,” my dad says and a slight amount of relief fills me in gratitude that they had ushered her out in time to miss it all, “that is why it took us a moment to pull him off of you. I’m sorry…I wish there -“

”Don’t apologize! You didn’t do nothing…so don’t be apologizing for that…for that jackass! He’s the one that did it, not you…besides there wasn’t anything you could do. You already did all that you could do by Garrett attacking him when he did,” I sigh fighting to calm myself down as I force myself to watch Garrett still attacking Trevor forcefully, filled with anger. Garrett continues to punch Trevor where ever his fist happens to land when Trevor pulls his right hand out of Garrett’s grip with his legs and abruptly brings his gun out of his belt. “Watch out Garrett!” I yell in my own fear of losing my brother to Trevor.

“Here they are,” I hear my step mom’s sweet voice filled with tears and I glance over to find her standing in the door way, her long light brown hair lies down to the middle of her back, tangled from the sleep we had awakened her from. With her stands several large police officers in dark blue uniforms, their gold badges reflects the light of the room that my dad had turned on when he had first entered the nursery room. “The blond on the bottom is Trevor Hodges…who was beating my step daughter, Kristy, there-“ Rosa turns and points to me, explaining this to the police officers as Garrett remains unaware of their presence in his anger, continuing to beat Trevor, “Trevor is her ex-husband, he came back for their two kids…of which he has a refraining order against him.”

An older cop with stripes on his sleeve and peppered black-gray hair steps out of the group, anger is spread across his tan leathered face. For a long moment I stand frozen in place, watching everything that is happening, worried that perhaps they’ll charge Garrett with beating Trevor as badly as he has. “OK son,” the older cop says in an understanding voice with a caring hand upon Garrett’s bare shoulder, “we can take it from here.”

Garrett looks up, shock has entered his angered hard gray-blue eyes in surprise at seeing that he was there before looking down at Trevor who has blood dripping down his face from his nose, mouth and a cut on his forehead; almost as if he were deciding whether to let them have him or to continue beating him. Slowly and stiffly Garrett forces himself to get off of Trevor who abruptly jumps to his feet, not missing a beat even to how badly he is beaten. His gun goes up first aiming it at me and Garrett before turning to the cops. “You let me out of here,” Trevor says, fear enters his eyes as he for the first time comes to realize that he will be arrested, “or everyone dies.”

“Don’t get harsh on us,” says the older officer and I gather that he is in charge of the rest, “all we want is peace here…of which you have broken to this family here.” He pauses to look around, taking in the damage that has been done here, “I take it you all want to press charges against him.”

“Of course we do,” Garrett spits at the cop, “the jackass broke into our house, scared the day lights out of my nephew and niece there, and beat my sister up good, not a lone mentioning all that he had attempted to do when I attacked him!”

“That’s what I figured,” the cop says understandingly to Garrett before piercing Trevor with hardened angry brown eyes, “you are under arrest for breaking and entering, beating her, and breaking your refraining order against her kids. Now if you turn around and come with us easily, things will go a lot smoother for all of us. . .and we won’t have to add a charge of resisting arrest. Dothers, you do me the favor of hand cuffing him and reading him his rights.”

“I told you I am not going with you,” Trevor says and for the first time that I have ever seen, fear enters Trevor’s blue eyes while he holds the gun up.

“Yes sir,” says a broad shouldered uniformed cop with thick reddish brown hair, as he slowly steps up while taking out his silver hand cuffs. I gasp in surprised fear as Trevor’s gun shoots off a deadly bullet, the explosion echoes throughout the house, before it harshly lands into Dother’s left shoulder. A loud agonizing yell escapes from Officer Dothers as he is thrown down to the floor with the pressure of the bullet that sends increasingly amount of blood spurting from his wound.

Two of the three remaining standing officers kneel worriedly besides Dothers as the older officer remains standing glaring nervously at Trevor, his hand speedily brings out his customized hand gun from it’s slot on his belt. Panic and fear cloud Trevor’s eyes as he glares at his own gun, surprised that he himself shot it at an officer before he glances up to see himself at gun point. “Look…I didn’t mean…to shoot…your man there…but I warned you all!” Trevor says, fumbling over his words, “And if you don’t let me walk out of this crappy house alive and free, I’ll,” he pauses fighting for leverage of escape before he eyes me once again and before I can move he forcefully grabs my right upper arm, his finger nails claw into my skin to draw blood. Quickly he chokes me with his arm from the back to place his gun at my right temple once again, “I’ll shoot her right here and now to leave my children orphaned! I’ll do it…don’t think I won’t.” When the older officer doesn’t say anything or move anything, Trevor begins to count, “I get to three you can tell her adios while you are cleaning up the blood spill on the carpet. One. . two. . .thr-“

”Trevor,” the officer says at the last second, “don’t do this…not here. Think this through…you won’t get away with it, you’ll be going down for life if you kill her. Dothers’s wound isn’t life threatening, but…You would be able to walk out in another twenty plus years…but if you follow this threat you’ll be likely to face the death penalty.”

“Does it look like I care?” Trevor says, his finger moving on the trigger, “This lady here caused me more pain than I ever care to talk about…she took away my own damn children! I can’t see them. Do you have children?”

“Yes,” the officer says grudgingly, “five of them, ages one through seven.”

“How would you like it if you couldn’t see any of them because your stupid ex-wife walks out on you?” Trevor replies looking for pity.

“I wouldn’t have to face that, because I don’t beat my wife,” the cop shoots back at Trevor with a hint of a smile, “yeah we looked into your profile on the way here…I’d give you a refraining order myself…plus jail time. You’re lucky they didn’t give you that! Now let her go…nice and easily and perhaps we can talk.”

“You won’t talk…you’ll be too busy handcuffing me and reading me my rights!” Trevor shouts and presses the gun tighter against my skin, “Now are you going to let me walk out of here, or do I have to shoot her now? I’ll do it, it’s your choice not mine! One. . .two -“

”OK Trevor. . .you have a deal,” the police officer finally says grudgingly, “let her go and you can walk out of here a free man…as long as no one else gets hurt.”

Trevor looks at him grudgingly, trying to determine if there is any strings attached. “That means I don’t get arrested or shot in the damn back!” Trevor says and I sigh in knowledge that he never expected to get into it this deep, to be shooting a police officer and now threatening to kill me. He just wanted to come over to scare me enough to kidnap my kids, thinking I’d have no choice but to surrender, to show me his control over me as he has always done in the past.

“No one is going to shoot you in the back,” the cop answers and I shoot a look at my dad who sits next to Shay who remains asleep at Jamie’s bed, “I can’t guarantee you not to get arrested. . .after all you just shot a cop, and beat her pretty well,”

“Well if I get arrested for beating her,” Trevor says, his alcoholic breath floats filthily in the room as his blood drips down upon my sweat shirt, “then you should arrest that jackass Duke over there for attacking and beatin’ me!”

“There’s a difference…you attacked her, he was defending his sister,” the cop says refusing to move an inch in fear of panicking Trevor, “OK Trevor, let’s make a deal. You let her go safely, no one else gets hurt, we’ll let you walk out of here without getting shot or arrested.”

“But you said, you couldn’t guarantee me not to getting arrested,” Trevor snaps, worried about his freedom.

The cop glares back at us for a long moment as sweat clearly runs down his leathered skin as he fights for what to do. “We can’t guarantee that,” he finally says, “Let’s say that you go now, without hurting anyone else, we’ll give you an hour before we search to arrest you. That is all I can guarantee.”

“An hour?” Trevor asks glaring back and forth and the cop nods, “I guess that is all I can ask for then? OK copper, I am going to walk to the door with Kristy for my own safety, when I reach the door, I will leave her there. If you move after me, she is gone. Understand?”

“Understand…no one move,” the cop orders as Trevor slowly begins to walk to the open door way where he walks down the long hall to the stairs. Sweat rolls down my face in nervousness as I slowly follow his footsteps as he forces me on.

After a long moment that seems like an eternity we reach the small hall way to the front door where he forces me to open the wooden door for him. I yell out in pain as he jerks me around and jams me harshly against the wall to send pictures falling from the wall where they were hung. “This won’t be the last of me…I will get my kids no matter how I need to get them!” he threatens to bring the butt of the gun harshly across my face and I fight back from yelling out in pain. Through tear blurred vision I watch painfully as he tosses me to the harden floor before he opens the screen door to run out, letting the screen door to slam shut.

“Mommy!” I hear my four year old daughter yells running out of the living room to meet me as the door slammed shut to announce his departure. Tears race down her pale cheeks as her greenish blue eyes shine of fear and sadness and I quickly draw her into a tight hug as I say a prayer of thanks and a prayer for help as I protectively hold onto her, refusing to let go.

“It’s OK sweetie,” I try to comfort her, still holding onto her, “he’s all gone…and he’s not going to come back.”

“But he said he was going to come back for us,” she says pushing back to look at me.

“I know, but I won’t allow it. OK? Mommy will never allow him to touch you or to come close to you ever again,” I promise her with hope to fulfill them.

“Huh huh. I love you mommy,” she says drawing me into a hug before letting go, “Mommy, you’re bleeding.”

“I love you too, sweetie,” I say to bring my wobbly hand up to where she points to. I gasp in pain as I touch my right cheek that flows with blood as I look up to find Garrett and the police officer running out of the living room.

“Kristy,” Garrett says, his voice thick of worry as his eyes shine still with anger towards Trevor as he extends a comforting hand and I take it for him to help me up to bring me into a caring hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be…it’s not your fault. And for your sake, there wasn’t much that you could have done that wouldn’t include me being shot. You did the only thing you could do by waiting for him to put the gun away,” I respond as my dad appears holding a rag that I grudgingly take to hold to my face.

“The ambulance is on it’s way,” my dad informs the cop who nods sullenly, “and you are going, Kristian, I don’t want any protest. They say it is best if you do go, just go to get checked out.”

“I can’t go,” I protest any way, “and I don’t want to go…I’ll get this stopped bleeding and I’ll be fine.”

“Me and Rosa will watch the kids for you and Garrett is going with you to make sure you go,” my dad says stubbornly as he runs his right hand through his thick light blonde hair.

“It is best if you do,” the cop pipes in to support what my dad says and I tiredly glance at him to read his gold metal name tag that reads Sgt. Mindler, “and perhaps hide out for a while. . .I called for back up to run after him in the direction he went, but just in case he does escape. I just gave him the hour safety for him to get away from you and the kids.”

I nod numbly in disbelief at what all had just happened as my thoughts switch from Trevor to the cop that had been shot due to Trevor’s hostility. “How is,” I fight for the right words, “how is that officer doing? I hope -“

”Ah he’ll live,” Mindler says as if it is no big deal, “it’ll leave a scar for a trophy to boost his pride with in the future. A few stitches and he’ll be out in the morning.”

A long moment of silence pass as I hug tightly onto Jamie before a long piercing siren interrupts the silence as it pulls to a park out front of the old house. I watch stiffly as three men carrying a stretcher walks methodically into the farm house and Mindler motions them to follow him to Dothers as another guy approaches us. “You going to take mommy away?” Jamie cries, her hand clutch tighter upon my sweat shirt.

The young paramedic glares helplessly at me with his sharp soft brown eyes that matches his light brown hair that is nicely cut. “Mommy is going to go with,” I pause to look at his name tag, “with Mr. Blinks here. He’s a paramedic. . .a nice paramedic who will take me to go see a doctor. You will stay here with grandma and grandpa. . .and Shay. Grandma and Grandpa needs help taking care of Shay. . .and I told them that you’d be the best one for the job to help them with Shay.”

“But I wanna go with you mommy,” she pleas me with her soft green-blue eyes.

“I know baby, I know. I wish you could too, but you can’t,” I answer giving her a big kiss and a hug as the paramedics wheel down the stretcher with the cop on it who stares up at the ceiling with the others talking to him, “I need to go now. You give mommy a big hug and a kiss and I will see you tomorrow morning. OK?”

“OK mommy,” she gives me a long tight hug before kissing me, “I love you mommy!”

“I love you too,” I answer as I hand her off to my dad before the young paramedic takes me by the arm.

“You Ok to walk?” the paramedic asks nervously.

“Yeah,” I respond giving Jamie another look back.

“We’ll be by in the morning,” dad says from behind me before Garrett helps the paramedic help me outside and into the back of the ambulance.

Pain shoots throughout my body as I slowly awaken to find myself lying on a hard bed that cages me in with plastic bars and a room that has tan painted walls and white linoleum flooring that reflects the bright lights above. My vision slowly clears itself from sleep as I am abruptly reminded of what had happened by the throbbing of my head. Slowly I fight to sit up only for a large spell of dizziness to spill over me and I let out a gasp of pain before lying back down upon the flat pillow. “Shhh, it’s Ok,” I hear my dad’s voice besides me and I throw a stare of shock at him.

“I thought. . .I thought you said that you weren’t going to come until morning?” I finally ask as I take in my dad who sits next to Garrett who is now dressed in tight jeans, expensive name brand black boots and a white tank top, his hair is nicely combed as if nothing had happened.

“And I kept my word,” he smiles caringly at me, concern is etched in his bright blue eyes, “it is now ten thirty in the morning.”

I glance over at Garrett who forces a smile to me as he nods in agreement as to what dad has just told me as I force myself to think of the ride over here where the young paramedic looked me over me as much as he could at the moment. Officer Dothers had talked animatedly to me in his caring attempt to help me relax, telling me jokes while he had laid on the stretcher with a couple paramedics looking him over.  Tiredness had quickly reached up to me as I was placed in a wheel chair and wheeled into an emergency room where I had gone several x-rays done and a thorough look over by a young good looking doctor. Last I remember my doctor was trying to explain how they were going to wheel me down the hall to a room where I would at least be spending the night. I must have fallen asleep on the way there or as soon as I hit the pillow in the room, but to me that only seemed like a few minutes ago.

“Already?” I ask in disbelief as I bring my hand to my right cheek where they had found a large cut and a bruise to find it bandaged, “Where’s Jamie…Shay?”

“They’re with Rosa,” my dad answers glaring up from glaring at his large thin hands that rests in his lap, his eyes are filled with mixed emotions, “Rosa will bring them by shortly, she was giving them both a bath when I left.” He takes a long moment of silence as he goes back to stare down at his tan leather cowboy boots and his well worn pale blue jeans as if lost in thought. Slowly he looks up at me with his clear blue eyes clouded with emotions that are hard to read from here before he slowly begins to speak once again, “Kristy,” he says drawing silent before he notices that he has already gotten my attention, “do you remember, long ago, when I use to take you down to Hazzard? A small town in Georgia. . .where we would spend some time at the family farm with family?”

“Daisy and Uncle Jesse?” I finally ask as vague memories of when I was a small child of five or so when I had traveled from my mom’s place to a small town with my dad, a town filled with peace and understanding. The farm stands out in my mind as a place I had ran free of any worry and knew I had fit in with Daisy no matter how much Atlanta had changed me, for a long time, I felt more at home there than with my mom in the city. It has been over twenty years now since I last visited the farm and had spent some time with my uncle and two of my cousins who had lived with him, “I remember some of it.”

“It has been awhile,” he says, his eyes tear up at the thought of his home town, a form of regret and guilt begins to cloud his eyes, “I don’t know how to say this, because I love having you stay here with me and Rosa…and them kids of yours is amazing. But as long as you are here and as long as Trevor is free, you are not safe and neither are the kids, “ He takes a deep sigh as he glances over at Garrett who watches me with his own concern, not really paying attention to dad as much as he is his own thoughts, “I want you to go with Garrett down to Hazzard, to spend some time down there, get to know them once again. I know Jesse would love to see you again and to meet Garrett here, he’s never seen Garrett. . .I guess when he was first born, but that’s it. Trevor would never think of looking for you in Hazzard…and he for chance does, you have family that will back you up. You’ll be safe in Hazzard.”

“Hazzard!” Garrett nearly jumps out of his chair as he hears this, “You want me to go down to Hazzard with Kristy? I don’t think so! I would never fit in . . .in that hick town you always talk about! There’s nothin’ but cows and corn. . .no I’m not going!”

“Garrett, please do this, if not for you or for me, do it for Kristy. She needs your support as does the kids,” my dad pleas with him taking a deep sigh to fight his temper back, “it isn’t that bad of a place, you’ll grow to like it and to fit in. I am not saying that you two have to live there. . .just until she is safe again. I’d go down with her if I could, but I can’t . . .not now anyways. Whenever the chance comes that I can, I’ll come down to take your place.”

“Why can’t you now?” Garrett snaps back, his attitude displaying in his hardened gray-blue eyes, “You’re the one that is always talking about going back, of visiting your brother. Why not now?”

Dad glares from Garrett then to me, his blue eyes sadden in the same regret and guilt that had filled them a moment ago. “Jesse would never talk to me if I were to go down now…and perhaps never will after what I had done. There will always be that hint of his anger he developed towards me over the years. . .I doubt he’ll ever forgive me. After what I had done, I don’t blame him,” he sighs as he plays with his wedding ring on his left ring finger in his nervous habit, “I was a jackass when I was younger, after your mom left me…I really was and unfortunately how I acted, who I was didn’t only affect me, but a lot of other people.”

Silence invades my small hospital room as I force myself to look at my younger brother as anger and resentment flairs lively in his hard gray-blue eyes as he stares down at the floor, lost in thought. “You can’t make me go down there. . .to that. . .to that hick town,”Garrett finally says as he looks up at me and his eyes seem to lighten a notch, “there is no way that I am going down to some hick town like that. . .where there is nothing to do but to watch the corn grow! I’m not goin’!”

Dad seems to challenge him to a staring contest as they both glance angrily at one another for a long silent moment before he turns away from Garrett. “You are taking this to the extreme Garrett . . . you got Hazzard all wrong by stereotyping it as you have. You know nothing about Hazzard nor have you ever stepped a foot in it, so you have no reason to be judging it so harshly,” my dad says almost in a whisper, his voice showing a hint of hurt pride by Garrett. “I think once you drop that attitude of yours, I think you’d fit in great there…and you’d grow to love it.”

“Fat chance,” my brother growls at my dad, his eyes flaring in anger at the thought of being forced to move out of a city, down to a small town, “I have friends here. . .I belong here.”

“Friends? You call them friends?!” dad snaps at Garrett as he runs a long thin hand through his thick golden blond hair, “Them punks that you call friends are the reason you got kicked out of the Army last year! Those so – called friends are only good for one thing and that is trouble! They are just another reason why you SHOULD move to Hazzard . . .to save yourself from them! If you don’t watch yourself, Garrett, you’ll end up digging yourself into the same hole I dug myself into over twenty years ago by falling in with a bad crowd!” my dad grows silent as his anger dances with guilt in his eyes as he forces deep breathes in attempt to control his temper, “Trust me, Garrett, it ain’t too much fun when you awaken one day to realize all the damage you did. . .damage that hurt others more than yourself!”

Silence enters the room once again as my dad grows silent after his speech as he slowly hides his face within his hands for a long moment, fighting to compose himself once again. “Look,” I finally speak up, “I can go to Hazzard. . .or find some other place where -“

”No,” my dad says abruptly, “I want someone to go with you . . .if not Garrett, then I guess I will go. I’m not having you go any where alone, at least not for awhile.”

“Thank-you,” Garrett says sarcastically feeling off the hook to force an angry glance from dad his way.

“I would think after last night, you would be more than willing to help your sister move to Hazzard, to help keep her safe. . .and the kids. They all need you,” my dad shoots at him, his anger still apparent in his blue eyes, “If you don’t go, you will find a full time job where you will help your mother with the payments around the house as well as help around the house. There will be no more of your sorry excuses as you’ve been feeding us the past year as to why you haven’t got a job.”

Garrett puts on a pouting face for a long moment before looking back down at his hands that lie in his lap to force more silence to fill the small room as my mind runs back to last night, the fear that had radiated in my children’s eyes. “Before anyone says anything else about going or not going to Hazzard, I owe you both an explanation, the full truth behind everything. . .we should have told you a long time ago, but hadn’t due to my own emotional pain, my own guilt,” my dad cuts in as he looks up, taking me in before taking in Garrett who glances up at him in anger, “The reason why I can’t go to Hazzard. . .I could, but I don’t know how that would end up, if Jesse would ever talk reasonably to me without seeing his anger burning in his eyes towards me. I wouldn’t blame him if he were to never forgive me after what I had done. I was young and foolish back then,” he pauses long enough to let it all sit in for a moment, “I was deeply hurt when Jayne, Kristy’s mom, had walked out on me for some other man who had money. . .I was more than hurt, I was angry. I found myself not caring much for anything, the only thing that mattered to me any more was Kristy and the few chances we got to hang out together.”

He slowly comes to a long silent pause as his eyes fill with guilt as he fights for words, my mind play back old memories like an old family video, pictures of my parents fighting over me and over each other. Pictures of the long trips down from Atlanta to Hazzard where I suddenly grew to be the main attraction and had been set free upon the family farm where I hung out with my cousins. “I soon met Rosa in Hazzard. . .who I knew held a crush on me, but I found off limits due to her family status and the friends she hung out with. Soon we had started to see each other and we grew serious,” he finally speaks up and for the first time I notice my dad’s strong confidence in himself seem to melt within him, “her brother grew instantly angry with me, he wouldn’t have me hanging around with his little sister . . .she was too good to be seeing a Duke he would say.

“As time went on, our relationship grew as well as the hatred her family had for me due to who I was . . .a rebel without a cause. Within three months of dating, she had hooked herself a job as a waitress at an expensive restaurant in Atlanta and had talked me into moving in with her in this apartment she had found…on her own. The apartment was in a shady part of town due the lack of money we had at the time and we both found ourselves hanging out with the wrong type of crowd. . .people who dealt in drugs. It wasn’t long before we both got hooked upon their drugs,” he seems to shudder at this confession of his past, “After a month or so of living together, Rosa found herself pregnant and afraid. Instead of dropping the drugs in thought of the health of the baby she carried, we both continued to use the drugs. . .if not more. We were young and only thought of ourselves at the time, not caring of the consequences the drugs would hold,” he pauses once again to notice Garrett’s anger to have settled down within his confession.

“Rosa had given birth to twins three months premature. . .drug babies, both of you addicted to drugs and under developed due to being born so early.  Though one of the babies seemed to suffer more effected from the effects of the drugs she used during her pregnancy . . .born with an under developed heart and lungs, diagnosed with a rare type of heart disease and asthma as well as a weak immune system. The doctors didn’t give him more than a month to live, if that,” dad continues to speak as tears enter his eyes as the memories of the stories he is now recalling etches deeply in his eyes, “Jesse had shown up for support when I had called him, telling him she was in labor. . .where he found out what we all had been doing while in Atlanta with the drugs and all. He was angry, his eyes brightened up with fire like I never seen them before. . .angry at both of us for only thinking of ourselves. I don’t blame him. The doctors had said that we should sign the baby’s DNR papers to give them permission to un-hook the machines that kept him alive. . .and when Rosa and I agreed quickly to do it, Jesse was quick to argue against it. . .he refused to allow us to do such a thing; even knowing the baby’s chances of survival. Jesse knew I would listen to him, that I wouldn’t go against his wishes with pulling the hook on the baby, I couldn’t go against his wishes after the argument we had about it all. He forced me to see that it was my fault…our fault.

“Time seemed to shape us through the long months after the twin’s birth. . .the more I visited, the more responsible I had grew as I knew the damage I had done to both of you as I looked into your faces of pain. We both talked of adoption, but as for the sick one, well if we were to put him up to adoption, they’d pull the plug on him for sure and who knew what would happen to Garrett there. Jesse seemed to visit the sick twin, of which we refused to name and he had given him the name of Beauregaurd,” he continues, “after the confederate leader. And after two months of hospitalization, Garrett was released and Rosa refused to let him go, to anyone. As for Bo he had out lived the expectation and was finally released from the hospital of a half year or so of hospitalization. We had taken him home at first. . .all he did was cry and he was in so much pain. .. pain that we had afflicted on him. The guilt rose within both of us each time we looked at him to know he wouldn’t live much of a life if any, he was doing good to be released from the hospital.

“After a week of supporting two babies at home, we couldn’t handle it any more and I took the easy way out. . .I chickened out. I knew Jesse had grown a special bond with the baby, the baby would never cry for him at the hospital, one look at me he’d start to cry. So we wrote a note and his stuff in a diaper bag and a back pack and dropped him off on Jesse’s front step in a car seat,” he pauses, tears trail down his cheeks and I begin to understand the guilt that I had seen in his eyes earlier, “we didn’t even knock…just left him there knowing Jesse would be forced to take him in as he had done the other two kids at the time.

“Looking back I know Jesse was right when he claimed we loved Garrett more, that there was no care in us for Bo. . .all I felt when I looked at Bo was guilt in knowledge that it was us that did that to him. . .to both of you,” he says wiping his eyes, “last I heard from a friend was that he was sick and was that his life expectancy wouldn’t pass six years of life…six damn years full of pain thanks to me! That is all I know about him, but Jesse was more than grateful to take care of him. I don’t know how he does it.”

Abruptly a thick air of silence falls upon my small hospital room as soon as my dad slowly comes to a stop of his past, the past he has kept silent from anyone who knows him. His bright blue eyes flare with guilt as his clear flashbacks of his wild past play clearly on the opposite side.  “You mean, I have a twin?” Garrett asks, seeming to put a side that he didn’t stand a chance to live.

“Had a twin,” dad corrects him looking over at him for a long moment, “he stood little chance of out living his sixth birthday.”

It grows silent once again within the room as the door slowly opens and a small petite blond haired nurse slowly walks in and I glance over to see Garrett checking her out. “You told me the weaker twin died moments after being born,” I finally say to cut through the thick silence that has covered my small hospital room, my voice comes out filled with resentment, resentment that I fight to hold back, “It takes you this long for you to come out with the truth about it all? Don’t you think we deserve to know thetruth? How convenient is it of you to come out with the truth now…now that you want me to move down to Hazzard; where I would run into the truth myself!”

“Kristy,” my dad pleas, his eyes begging my forgiveness, “it’s not like that and I think you know it. You do deserve to know the truth. . .and I have thought over and over again of telling you, but have always gotten lost on how to tell you both before I found myself numbly lost in the past. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t recall my wild past, where all the alcohol and drugs had led the two of us . . . as well as the so called friends we had hung out with. What we did, was stupid and it effected a lot of people,” he pauses to take in a deep breath, “Every once in awhile, I catch myself looking at Garrett, wondering if that is what Bo would look like. . .or how different they would be from one another…I’m sorry.”

“Which is why,” Garrett starts in after watching the nurse leave, closing the door behind her, “you are refusing to go with Kristy.”

For a long silent moment, my dad glances over at Garrett who glares out the window across the room. “I could never go back home after all I have done. . .Jesse is one of the kindest people you are ever going to meet, but once you have riled him up, there isn’t a chance that he is about to forget; especially when it comes to hurtin’ others. . .especially the innocent,” my dad sighs as if remembering the past, or someone of the past, “Jesse was my oldest brother, I looked up to him, I still do. I doubt I could ever see him again in knowledge of the anger that he has stored up for me, to see how much of a failure I am in his eyes. He would never let me forget what I had done…how I affected you and Bo, of the damage I did by the drugs I used.”

Silence once again erupts in the small hospital room as I glance back from my dad to Garrett as I begin to wonder what Bo would have been like to what he would look like. “What about work? My friends?” I ask in a tearful voice, “I mean I just moved here a year ago or so and started this job, just beginning to fit in and all?”

“I know,” my dad says, his voice thick of regret, “but it is the only way, for now at least, to escape Trevor in safety of your children. I had called work this morning and tol’ them you were moving to safety…didn’t tell them where. They seemed to understand. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. . .not at all,” I answer numbly, still numb of the truth of the reality of it all, “So when do we leave?”

“This is all your call, Kristy,” dad says, “I don’t want to be forcing you to go like this, I am only thinking of your’s and the kids’ safety. Rosa is home now, helping you pack the children’s belongings…and what do you say, about going Garrett? I really think it would be good for you if you do go . . .to get away from those friends that you hang out with.”

For a short moment anger flairs from Garrett’s smokey gray-blue eyes at the mention of him going to Hazzard once again before it seems to soften a notch. “Fine, but I ain’t gonna like it none! No matter what you say. . .or why you can’t go down there. . .it ain’t my fault,” Garrett digs our dad’s guilt farther down into a hole, “I’ll be there for Kristy…the kids.”