Secrets- ~~ Chapter Four

He knew and learned in the law school that in any confrontation, honesty would always be a strong and vital element to keep one's nonchalance. He had preached that to his older children, the ones from his first marriage. He had asked his clients to be honest with him and to tell him the truth; John did. He knew that candor would confuse the challengers. All opponents would expect deviousness; with truth and sincerity one always would make the other side off- balance.

Knowing all these, he, himself, had not been very conscientious man. He had tried though; but when he had come to the realization that by being truthful, he would always be just another lawyer, there were so many of them, he decided to wait for his chance and luck to knock the door. Then John's father came along, offering him five million dollars. "I don't care if my son did this crime or didn't, I want him a free man." John's father had told him when he hired him.

He had found faith in fury! Did he really believe in religion? No one, even himself, was sure. He knew it was very proper thing to go to church with one's family; so he did. He tried to do everything proper for a lawyer, like when he went to opera with Jacob and his wife, or to a museum with his children. Everyone in his church knew him. But ultimately it was fury that was his faith not love or religion. His undoubted conviction arose from anger, a deep seeded anger that he was not sure how and where it had begun. He was passionately an assertive person.

Throughout his adult life, sometimes all of a sudden, his ongoing confusion of life had changed to a chilling terror. In the last five years, he felt that consternation quite often. Normally when he was like that, his face expression changed to a death- like grimace.

He was told numerous times that he wavered, acted evasively, had debility of direction, and came with so many ideas. For sure this very subject brought him to an obsession to do more wrong than right and to damage rather than heal.

Now he, in his brutally radical way, on the other hand, wanting to be devoted to his purpose- loving power, all of it, used or unused, was represented by an avenger, Tim. In Tim's opinion, for insulting one particular human being, his son. However the end would be all about the passion and misery of the person he had insulted. Ed was hopelessly wounded by this avenger. All he had in mind at the time of accepting the money and twisting the facts, was that one life was not that important when it came to happiness and financial security of many others. But now all he needed was human passion, love, and forgiveness.

He looked at all these impatient people, including his wife, who were waiting for him to open his mouth and spill out the unspoken. How could he? How could he tell these people that yes, he accepted the bribe, yes, he tampered the evidence, yes, he paid off many people to cooperate with him, and above all, how he did not care that an innocent life would be wasted in prison by his action?

Now, he needed courage, the audacity of a naturally timorous man who was determined to defeat his terror. He, who had believed he was a very moral, and honest man, now was confused about his own morality. His confusion was a great deal. Throughout his life, anytime because of weakness, or loving lassitude, or craving an easy life, or even absolute kindness of his personality, he believed he was a kind person, he felt drawn to relinquish the struggle for individual power or common ideas that he had had and just to leave the work and retire. He could do it. He had enough money to do it. But it had been the serious and moving images of his friends, he did not have many, that like an icon came to his vision and called him back to his chosen path.

To Be Continued

Secrets- Chapter Four

"All cases, in time, get lost in the human judgement." Ed began somberly." I've had my nightmares."

Ed knew himself well enough, and he understood that most people around him apprehended some of his motives, like his wife or his best friend, Jacob. In fact, he had a prosaic sense and a knowledge with every day affairs. However, his strength was the ability to present himself not as a liberated man, both in mind and action, but as a person who exercised other people's ideas and used them. He was devoted to some people and some things; however, his actions were without flattery when it suited him.

At that moment, when he felt the eyes of the others fixed on him, he felt this night's events could not have a more dreadful ending. He had feared for the last five years that one day his horrifying act of accepting five million dollars from John's father would come to haunt him. But his logic of accepting the money while knowing his client's guilt from John's own mouth when he practically told him that he killed the woman, had been that many other lawyers had done it, why not him!

To him, prejudice was not a difficult task to follow. He had been ready to obey the rule. He understood that he could abide by and respect himself at the same time. To him getting where he wanted to be was only happiness; but that was a mere subordinate existence. He wanted more; he had enough of being just an ordinary lawyer. He wanted power, position, name recognition; and the only way to achieve those were to win an unattainable case and to have money and to become famous. Money was power. To come across that much money without looking for it, suddenly had become the apex of his dreams.

Now he had a great chance of winning the election against his opponent, a woman, to become a judge. To him, women generally were about abstraction. They could not be a political reality. The money, blood money, had helped him to run his campaign. Soon he would be a district Judge. He would sit on the bench, people would stand for him, and he would have the ultimate power. The money had brought him the name recognition; therefore, he was getting a lot of small and big donation for his campaign. None of these were possible five years ago when he had been just an ordinary lawyer. That blood money had brought him power; the superiority which would attract people and would intimidate them at the same time.

Now his habitual and unruffled way of life was changed by this mad man and by his own anxiousness. This was no trivial trouble. He used to refuse having them. He had not distinguished them as such. He needed people, especially his friends. Jacob was his winning card, his best friend; but even to him or his wife, he never mentioned any of his malevolent actions especially that biggest disgrace of the five years prior.

He benefited himself of his animal right so he could feel no compassion for a name in the paper, or a person in the courtroom. A politician, he believe he was one, ought not to care. A politician was a proper man in his opinion and he should be obeyed. He knew this simple fact; if he did not want to be detested, he had to be abide. He liked that. A judge was always obeyed. Yet he knew ultimately that politics was not only a unscrupulous profession but it was also a hasty one. You got to grab it when it came your way, otherwise it would glide of your hands. Nonetheless, coming to that conclusion did not stop him of yearning to become one.

He knew that people with extreme talent, integrity, and artistry went into arts, teaching, and music. Politics got the second rate people. But that was the best he could do. he had convinced himself that politics was not a science but it was a form of art. That thought had made him happy.

Often times, he pretended that he enjoyed a classical music or opera or a master painting, specially when he was with Jacob. He would buy the season ticket for opera and would go with Jacob and Diana who always went to opera. He would go to see a symphony. But internally he did not understand them. However when it came to law and manipulation, he was always ahead.

Would he be elected to judgeship, the power of his position would be a hostage to his own ravenous craving for dominance, self- gratitude, and hunger for respect. However the threat of this night's dreadful events made him sickened to his stomach. To him this discovery was like a betrayal by a person he respected the most, Jacob. "How could he allow this?" This was just so unfair, so unjustified. He felt a tremendous pressure on his being; however, there was no physical evidence of how he felt. What it was or he felt was an anxiety of his soul. He knew it was there, a corrosive hopelessness that nothing in that moment would have anything for him but madness. To him, this madness was the law now.

To Be Continued

Secrets-==== Chapter Three

"The woman, who had noticed how drunk John was, and had also noticed that he was using cocaine, refused to have sex with him. He repeatedly raped, sodomized, and abused her for hours. They found the mark of her hands being tied by a rope. Then he carried her into his car, drove her to a wooded area and raped her more. After all these, he stabbed her numerous times and left her there to die. His car roared, accelerated, sped away, and twisted on the road."

Suddenly Tim stopped talking. Tears swam in his eyes. No one had ever seen such tears in the eyes of a man who played his role of self- confidence so well. Again, Diana looked at him and saw that color was leaving his face with those tears. However, Tim's fervor for talking seemed being abated and was replaced by a melancholic and obscure restlessness. Nevertheless, he looked through his rainy eyes to his listeners and continued:

"A driver of a truck found the woman on the side of the road. She had crawled there for help. He called the police. She died in hospital three days later. The cause of her death was not only the stab wounds but it was the severity of she being so traumatized. John was arrested. People had seen his car was parked in front of that woman's house and many of woman's friends knew she was seeing John.

"Ten days later, the strangest twist happened. Police arrested my son. His mother called me and told me about it. Now they called him the suspect. John's parents had already hired Ed and his firm as their son's attorney. I don't know how much money they offered him, but everything turned against my son like a nightmare. They found witness to testify that my son was there, too. Yes, he was there, in that woman's house earlier, but he had left before all these happened.

"They twisted the fact, messed up all the medical records. All of the sudden John's semen on the woman's clothes disappeared. They found my son's fingerprint every where in that woman's house and in his car. The weapon, kitchen knife all of the sudden was wiped clean. It was found in the scene of the crime. Everything was changed only to switch and twist facts, and free the real killer. But how could they free the killer if they didn't have another suspect to replace him. My son was the best candidate. He was there earlier. People had seen his car there. Now the same people were not sure if my son left earlier or late at night. And above all, in order to free himself, john pointed his finger at my son; too much for friendship. His parents offered all the money they could to Ed, and Ed twisted everything around and used his expertise as a criminal lawyer to tell the court and jurors that it was not his client who did this despicable crime. John was acquitted. On the other hand in a separate court, a year later, my son was found guilty on all accounts as charged. He was remitted to the jail awaiting sentencing. The sentence was handed down a week later- life in prison, and if he would behave, he would get out after forty years.

"Now my son is paying for the crime he didn't commit; and John is free to walk in the streets. I just recently heard that he is married and his wife expecting a baby.

"I go and visit my son. I also go and follow john only to see how free he is, working for his father, traveling, having a wife. A few times I decided to run him over. But it seems that he always has some body guards around him.

"My son is very angry and depressed. He has attempted suicide and he is under intense watch all the time. He tells me: 'Dad, I'm Innocent.' I look at him and tell him with my eyes: 'I know.'

"At this point I rather him die. Now can we go through life like this? Up to now, I was afraid of death, but it doesn't matter anymore. I know the end will come for my son one day, and I'm not afraid of that. What can I tell him? Tell him that I love him. No, it made no sense before and it makes no sense now.

"There is no sense in deceiving myself. I know that my son and I are parted. I try to act sensibly when I see him. But our lives are made of a bitter, harsh, and lonely existence. There is no audacity left in us. He was the fire and energy of youth, but that is all gone now. It is alien situation, a very unpleasant one for my son; and I can't do a damn thing about it.

"It hurts to the core of my existence to know that he'll be behind bars for the rest of his life for a crime he didn't commit. Now all I do is to fill my life with everything that comes around rather than leaving a void. But honestly, I live a void and empty life, so empty that sometimes I hear the echo of my own breathing- the breathing of air of freedom while I'm a prisoner just like my son." Tim stopped talking suddenly, as though he was reading a report and there was nothing else there to be read.

A dreadful silence followed. Everyone forgot what happened before this story was told. No one was able even to sympathize with him. Tim got up and walked quickly to the yard, as though in sudden alarm at the story which had blown out from his lips. Jacob followed him outside.

Ed's head was bent in his chest. He was not looking at anyone. Thui, his wife, sitting next to him, held his hand. He looked up.

"Is it true?" She asked him.

He did not answer.

She contemplated and remembered that five years ago a big money had come to them. Suddenly she let her hands drop on her lap; and for a long time she sat, her head bent, staring at the floor. Slowly a faint heat crept into her cheeks, but her lips stayed unspoken and her dark eyes held a befuddled look and some other emotions she could not define. She was aware of a restraint, of a feeling of fear that filling her up. With her chin propped on her fists, she sat drowned in thoughts. Her reflection was deep and grave but not yet despondent.

Jacob and Tim returned to the room. Jacob brought a new bottle of wine, opened it, and poured a glass for himself and Tim. Then he sat next to Rosa, looking at everyone. It seemed he wanted to take charge.

"I," He began hesitating to say the unspoken.

"Ed, I need to know the truth. We have been friends for over twenty years. I remember now that about five years ago you came up with a lot of money. I must know the truth."

Ed Looked up. He seemed disturbed. He felt the pressure of all these people, who wanted the truth.

"You want the truth!" He began. "I tell you the truth. Yes, it is true."

To Be Continued

Secrets-^*^*^* Chapter Three

"Let me tell you about my son, Christopher. You can imagine how he was raised, with a mother who didn't believe in any principals, and a father, who had only visitation, and in those visits, besides trying to please him with buying stuff for him, all we talked about was about knowing about his mother's affairs. I admit, I made a snitch out of him. For many years I still had feelings for Nancy.

"It is a shame that how poorly we parents know about our children and the effect our behaviors have on them. We know that through our children our souls are healed, yet we, for our own selfish need and vanity, use our children to achieve unachievable.

"I must confess I've not been a good father. Yes, I paid my child support, yes, I didn't miss my visitations; but I didn't take time to study him, to teach him, to know him, to see what he is like, to see what his fears are, what his aspirations are.

"In years, many years, after all these, each day became valuable to me and more cherished as time went by. Finally I noticed it. I began going through days and nights very happy, satisfied. You may ask how so? I don't know. It's hard for me to analyze it. I guess I wasn't waiting for my mood. I was just happy. I knew if I act happy, the good temper would come.

"When Christopher passed his teenage years, my relationship with him minimized. It was hard at the beginning, but like anything else, I got used to it. He was becoming a grown up man. He looked older than his age. It seemed to me that he just went from childhood to manhood. His teenage years were short and nasty. However, I was always aware of what he was doing. He never went to college. He got jobs that he hated and changed them like one changes underwear. He always had some kind of explanation for this attitude of his. People around him, including the bosses and coworkers were all bad, period. I don't know what came of Nancy. There came a point that I didn't care anymore. She was dead in my mind.

"Christopher got involved with bunch of vulgar and worthless people. They were like a band of brothers, did everything together, inseparable. I knew about these friends to a certain degree. I confronted him about six years ago. He was thirty one then, yes, thirty one. Perhaps you thought I am going to say he was twenty. I told him that he was with the wrong crowd; he needed to settle down. I gave him all the fatherly advices that a father could give. He laughed at me and said: 'It's too late for both of us that you're acting like a father now.' He was right. I couldn't even apologize to him for what had been stolen from him, a normal life.

"Knowing that I had not been a good father, and what had become of our lives, my life and my son's life, I completely lost my tranquility. I thought that my mind was working, but then I realized that my logic was gone. I called Nancy after all these years to discuss Christopher's behavior. Then I understood that she had not changed. She didn't care.

"Oh, what a pitiful world we live in!" Tim Got up, lit up a cigar, and sat in a different chair. He put his cigar inside his wine glass and forgot all about it. Then he continued:

"You know we can't live without love, but we can pretend that we don't need it and deny it all together. I knew how to present myself in society in an indispensable way. But I had to face my real soul, my real life, and what had become of Christopher. Then I tried to teach myself not to hate all it was happening around me. And what was happening?

"Jacob, I seem to recall that you were telling me of my lack of seriousness." Tim talked like a man who had walked into a muddy earth and sinking deeper with every step he took; yet he walked faster and faster and sank deeper and deeper.

"You see how serious I am now. What you saw as lack of my seriousness is again an illusion. You were seeing right as left and left as right in the mirror. I've always been serious. Now I'm more serious than ever, for I'm going to reveal the most dreadful secret one can have before dawn with you. But before doing that, I must go back to my son's story and the reason I'm here tonight- to face Mr. Vanity, Mr. Money Lover. I knew of what else would happen here tonight, like Rosa being your daughter, like Diana being your wife. That is why I'm determined to tell you all my secrets.

"It happened five years ago. Everything melted into the thin air without a trace. John, Christopher's friend, a couple of years younger than him, committed this despicable crime, and now Christopher has to pay for it. John's parents are very wealthy. In fact his father is one of the most prominent people in Dallas and hold a high position in government. He also involves in oil business and I know that he owns some oil wells for a big American- British company.

"Christopher and John hanged up together all the time. That night, that inauspicious night they were in this woman's house. They had a lot to drink. But I know for fact that John was very drunk. He began acting violent. My son told him that he didn't like what he was doing. He wanted them to have sex with the woman at the same time. Christopher left the woman's house. It wasn't until the next morning that John called my son and told him the horrifying news.

To Be Continued

Secret- <><><><> Chapter Three

"Tonight here I learned a lesson. After all these years, tonight I regret what have I done. I deplore that I undermined women, all of them for such a long time. Don't ask me why, how I came to be sorry tonight! I am truly repentant. But I must say that all these women used me, too. They knew what they were doing. It was like an unwritten contract. All these years, Diana was the only one I had to take by force and who withdrew from my class and that course all together.

"People find all kind of things amusing. Mine all these years has been how to get the next woman."

"I've been through the same thing with Rosa's mother, but I've never found it amusing to use women for the fault of one of them." Jacob waved his hand in protest. "In fact, I got married and stayed faithful."

"You're right." Tim responded with a stern look on his face. "Maybe you're a better person than I am, may be you have a better personality. I don't know. We are what we are. Some people do crime and blame it on their childhood; some with the same kind of childhood, do great things. We all are very complicated.

"You all may think how cruel I've been. You all perhaps mocking me. You may say that how many innocent people I've dong wrong only out of vengeance of my heart; and you all are convinced that I've been inhuman and everyone else has been human. I don't blame you. But all that I encountered in my life and according to you did wrong, knew it from start. In a way, they did me wrong, too. They reinforced my opinion towards women.

"I've been frightened so many times and often for my life and for the purpose of my life. I've had moments of pure terror when my logic were still working, but to no avail. Have you ever felt that terrified, the way I have? Sometimes I felt that all these terrors were just there for me so I could be able to face the inevitable. It is like knowing for certain that an earthquake is about to happen, and the earth will definitely open beneath your feet, but you have this strong desire to stay where you are, close your eyes, and wait, and wait, no matter what happens.

"What can I tell you? All I did at the beginning was not to be depressed or bored. Later each morning when I looked at the bright sunshine, I felt I was being detached. Some times when I walked, and I walked a lot, I felt I would reach the line where the sky and earth connect; I felt that there I perhaps would find a clue to the human behavior, and I would gain a new life which would be a lot more calm.

"I dreamed of a different kind of people, different kind of environment, a place full of life, a place empty of betrayal; but later I knew everything was only a mirage and I needed to find a life in the prison I lived."

"You're denying the truth." Jacob began. "Look in the mirror, see the truth about yourself. All along you knew the truth about yourself. You just didn't look at yourself in the mirror."

"No, Jacob," Tim protested: "What you see in the mirror is only a mirage. In the mirror what is right is left and what is left is right. It's all illusion. You know life's greatest tragedy is not to be loved, and that is the feeling I have had all my life. People have always mistaken me for a happy person, but I know internally how sad I am."

"But sadness is so ungrateful!" Rosa murmured.

"For whom? It's again an illusion. You don't know what people really carry beneath their happy faces. We all are sad deep inside. Try to think hard. You see what I'm saying is true.

"People take me for Mr. charming, a Casanova. What kind of person I am that I know people take me for a user. When I go to a friend's house or see people, I think here they are, taking me for a user, yet I know that I am intelligent enough to know what kind of label they put on me and they don't realize that. Then I laugh secretly at their vagueness.

To Be Continued

Secrets-_)(_)_(_ Chapter Three

"I was only twenty three when I married Nancy. It was 1960, The aura that many things happened to our culture and changed our society. You know Vietnam, Woodstock, and all those kind of stuff. Now you know how old I am. Yes, I am sixty one now, an old divorcee.

"Nancy was my high school sweet heart. We exclusively dated each other. We married when I graduated from college and got a job. Christopher was born a year later. He is thirty seven years old now. He is the kind, one may say, born unlucky, and will die unlucky.

"Nancy got involved with bunch of friends, who believed in things very much against what I believed. She said she was bored and our lives had no color. One of her ideas was that child must take her mother's name. I didn't like it, but I didn't fight her. I wanted to keep the peace in the house. I wanted my marriage to last. If some one knew about our private life, their advice to me was that this marriage was already lost. I loved her. I wanted my son to grow up with both parents. She never changed her last name to mine after marriage. And when the baby was born, we named him Christopher Hoyle Rhoads. I was happy that at least he used my name in the middle. But the last name was her maiden name." Tim stopped. He raised his head and looked at Ed to see the effect of the name, his son's name he just had announced.

Ed's head was in his chest. He recognized the name right away. The whole story rushed in to his mind. He wished to stop the time, or to return time to the previous evening before all these things had started. But the water had spilled out and there was no way of gathering it. He tried, however, not to show any sign of emotion, because he knew all the eyes were intensely on him.

"Does the name ring the bell?" Tim began, feeling a thorn in his throat.

"A very short time after the birth of Christopher, Nancy got involved even more with those friends she had; and she wanted us to do what they were doing. They all thought that no bond could take human for granted. They all thought they were free in spirit and soul; therefore they had to be free in action and behavior. To them, the culture and morality were nothing but chain and repression. I couldn't believe this was the same girl I knew for ten years, dated her. Let me just spill out- they swapped partners, and Nancy wanted to experience it, too. She called me old fashioned, stupidly moral." Tim felt a big knot in his throat. From time to time, he cast a deplorable glance at others.

"I fought with her. I tried to reason with her. I told her that the beauty of marriage is its exclusiveness. She stormed at me that I was an old fashioned foul. I finally gave in to her. Yes, I admit it. I gave in to her. We did that thing for a couple a times, actually, to be honest, I didn't. I pretended that I did. I couldn't stand it anymore. Who ever would become my partner, only hear my lecturing and no action. I told her that as important as our marriage was to me with a kid and all, I wouldn't tolerate this. I told her that she needed to clean up her acts. Her response was: 'Even though we both are the same age, we belong to different generations.' I was horrified by her answer. I was offended. What has happened to the girl I knew since we were thirteen years old.

"I thought to myself that this dreadful situation couldn't be helped. We were in a very terrible time. It was like a bitter medicine that one had to swallow it. It was the time that you could see Jane Fonda on the enemy's tank, solacing them, entertaining them, but not our own soldiers who were almost all drafted. Those soldiers were treated the worse of any other war we had. She wanted me to swallow that bitter medicine and be like every one else. That was her exact word. 'When did you become Mr. honorable?' I chocked on that poison. I refused to do it or to go with her.

"After being married for only two years, we finally got a divorce. I loved her parents. I told them the real reason.. Yes, I had visitation, yes, I paid child support; but every thing had flown into the thin air for me. I decided not to marry ever again. I found all women my enemies; and I decided to fight them. But I didn't come to this point right away. I was hurt. I was bitter, yet I thought I should go back to school. I was still a very young man, only twenty five years old. So I did.

"I became a lonely bachelor at such young age. I felt I was entering the dubious dusk of nostalgia that was not related to hope. I thought that my youth was over and my old age had not yet come.

"I felt terrible for many years. But I must admit sometimes I began feeling better for awhile. When that happened, I used to go out. But after awhile, the streets, the people, everything infuriated me. I would return home and purposely would shut myself inside for a long time. I could not endure the filthy, vulgar, and nasty people. Everyone seemed to me was anxious and restless. I was hopeless. Everybody was walking in the streets, but no one was united; and if they did, it was not the right time or place.

"When I finished school and got a teaching job at the university, I started feeling better. Looking at all those beautiful women in my classes, I kept reminding myself of their souls. I kept thinking that beneath those beautiful faces there were a soul of stone. Slowly I felt that they were all the same, just like Nancy. If you don't give in to their want , you're thrown out from their lives. I kind of convinced myself that I could use them and throw them out, too. So I did.

To Be Continued

Secrets- ~*~*~* Chapter Three

"Listen, Tim," Jacob began: "I can't share your hatred for subjugation, grievance, and inhumanity. Unlike you, I can't rest easily in my speculative scope; and that is exactly what you're doing. You're asking my forgiveness! I don't know what to say. Without knowing your story, I feel sorry for you. Let me hear what you have to say, and then I decide how I feel!"

"Tomorrow morning will be a real day, a real dawn." Tim began. Tear rose in his throat. "I want to know if any of you believe in God. No, no, let me ask Ed, only him. Ed, do you believe in God?"

"Of course I do." Ed raised his head. He seemed disgusted. He still did not know anything about Tim's son. He needed something more to bring back his case to his mind. He knew he had taken cases for just money while deep in his heart he did not believe in his client's innocence.

"I thought so. Your God is an unknown and unseen God. We know nothing about him. You can pray, and feel and wait. Like when you pray to win a case. Winning a case for you is saving your name and reputation, so you can get more cases and make more money, isn't that so? But God doesn't do what you think he'll do. It is the human corruption that every time makes you win, makes you get more money. And it is also human misery that you take advantage of.

"You may say if God doesn't do what I expect from him, he must have a reason. You may say it is only for the time being, incidental, it's not done because of the external impact. But let me tell you, you love and worship what your God hates; you hate what He adores; you acknowledge absolutely what he declines. You get frustrated, you turn your eyes, do whatever you must do. And then you go to church Sunday morning and pray.

"I can't worship the God that is your God. Your God is corrupt like you. Listen, I'm not here to judge you, you're the one that want to become a judge. I'm just telling you and everyone else the reality. I believe that I am devoted to truth, and the truth is what we know before dawn."

"Listen," Ed began: "I am an honest lawyer. You're probably mistaking me with someone else. And I hate your opinion, your arrogance, your negativity, your horrifying mental capacity of life and human. I am sure what happened to your son had been awful; but I have nothing to do with it. I don't even recall a person by his name."

"Because my son has his mother's maiden name, and I'm going to tell you why!"

"Thank God, you're finally stopping philosophy and getting on your story." Ed retorted.

"What I said is just common sense; but because you don't have any sense, you don't understand common sense." Tim answered abruptly.

"Will you two stop fighting and have a little respect for each other." Rosa said after a long silence.

"Sweetheart, I'm not fighting. I'm here tonight to face this man. All I'm asking is just to listen. All of you listen to what I must say; and stop interrupting me.

"See how time flies. I heard it flies in prison even faster. Maybe that is good... I don't know... My son has to spend the rest of his life there. If he behaves, he may get out in forty years. So I guess it's good that time flies fast. But all of these are just vague thinking." He reflected, putting his hand on his forehead.

"I've lost everything I have because I've lost my past. I can't deny that my past exist, but I lost it. Is there anything more precious in this world than a beautiful woman with her child? I keep remembering this picture in my mind when she had Christopher in her arm. This is the only thing I have left, only a memory, a picture, an image.

To Be Continued