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Chapter 131 — The Last Visit
Mary and Mason's house was granted by the unusual visitor in the morning of the next day.
"Mr. Stewart?" Mary surprised and moved aside letting in the wheel chaired guest.
"Good morning. I like to see your husband," Colin Stewart said. "Do I believe that you are Mrs. Capwell?"
"Yes, it's my wife Mary," Mason approached and with possessive gesture put his hand on her shoulder. "What wind blew you in, Colin? Still waiting I'll wake up by pangs of conscience?"
Stewart looked at Mary.
"I have no secrets from Mary," Mason said.
"I think you both are needs to talk. Come in," Mary invited.
Colin drove into the living room and stops next to the sofa.
Mason got at the sofa's arm while Mary leads her curious children upstairs.
"Your little ones?" Stuart nodded after them.
"Of course. So what do you want to say me?"
"I have received the copy of the record," Colin looked darkly at Mason.
He slightly shrugged.
"I want to apologize," Colin emphatically said.
"For what? For defaming my name and my family? The threat of litigation? For the charge of attempted murder?"
Stewart weakly smiled. "Tomorrow all the newspapers will come out with refute. Any trial will not be. I do apologize for accusing you."
"Why you did it?" Mary came to them and sat on the sofa near Mason. "Mason was your friend. How you did believe in McDermott's false story?"
"You would not believe me, but being Ross's friend has been for me the most precious gift of all time."
"He's never seeing you as a person," Mason could not resist. "And you and I were on an equal footing."
"You still did not understand, Capwell," Stewart's face got a dreamy, melancholy expression. "Of course, you cannot do. You've always had a great family."
"A great family?" Mason repeated puzzled.
And Colin continued: "I and McDermott were in the same boat. We were both thrown to rot in this horrible school, we actually have been orphaned."
"Not only you, but me and the rest of students."
He shook his head.
"All others were visited by their families. They got letters from home. They were protected by parents. And only I and Ross were forced to survive on our own as we could. When you showed up at school I thought you were on the same way. That we can understand each other. But then it turned out that you are like everyone."
Mason looked at the former classmate and pictures of the past seethed madly in his brain.
"So why you are abruptly turned away from me," he hoarsely said and cleared his throat. "On the weekend I'd visited my father and stepmother."
"It's true," Colin nodded. "I saw how they're all over you and I realized that we both were not on the same road. Fortunately Ross soon appeared in the school."
"You're sounding like you did wait for him," Mary wondered.
"I did not wait but I guessed that he might appear."
"Why?" Mason surprised.
"I went to the school since my elementary classes," Stewart just said. "I knew his older brother. And I guessed what Ross might also be here."
"And where is his brother now?" Mason asked. "In the prison also? Or in the nuthouse?"
"He committed suicide a month after his prom."
"And Ross was still sent to your school?" Mary stunned.
"It's not matter about the school, Mrs. Capwell," Stuart looked at her. "Not everyone can stand against the absolute loneness."
"But he still had his family? Parents, siblings?"
"Have you ever heard that you can have a bunch of relatives, but to be completely alone? I also have three brothers, two sisters and both parents. But I do not even know their phone numbers. They never did care about me. However after my fall my father had sitting at my bed for a few times and my mother even once spent the night in my hospital room. It's the best days in my life."
"But you did survive through this," Mason slowly said. "You survived, got the profession and well-known name, got married. What made you to look for a guilty person?"
"My wife said me that she would leave me if I do not get the worldwide popularity. I thought it's the great chance to express everybody and for revenge. You would not believe how the world changes when you look at it from the wheelchair," Stuart lovingly stroked his arm-rests. "For the one your own step you are ready to sacrifice everything. I spent so much money on doctors and medicine, but it's no good."
"But you believed it that I did set up you fall?"
"Ross convinced me that you outplayed us. We wanted to set up you in that night and you're ahead of us."
"You both were judged by your own," Mason chuckled ruefully.
"Mr. Stewart..." Mary begins, but he interrupted her.
"Call me Colin, please," he sweetly smiled.
"Mr. Stewart, could you say when exactly you decided to take revenge on Mason?" Mary asked.
"Does it matter?" Colin raised the eyebrow.
"Yes. So when?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I do not remember."
"And it seems to me you do. But for some reason you do not want to talk about."
Mason looked at her.
"You are very perceptive," Colin said. "Yes, I lied to Mason when I said that I decided to take revenge on him six months ago. I lost my hope for recovering at the last August."
"I knew it. After my supposed death," Mary nodded.
"I wanted to take revenge on you, Capwell, but I thought that your fate made it for me."
"But you still continued to follow Mason, right? Hence and McLean's masquerade. As Mason told me whole story as I immediately thought how you can know so much details about Mark McCormick."
"I hired the private eye and I'd aware about every step you take, Mason. When I'd known that you found your love again, I started new plans for revenge, but it's intervened by Lawrence Duvall."
"And did you decide to let him to make your dirty work?" Mason chuckled. "And you failed again."
"Yes, I was with no luck. And then I finally made out the scheme. The rest of it, I think, you already knew."
"You are so outspoken, Mr. Stewart," Mary noted. "Do you sure that your words will not be used against you?"
"It would be not good for your husband, Mrs. Capwell. The new lawsuit with my word against his word... No, I'm sure I can speak freely."
"I think we've all said, Mr. Stewart," Mason rose to his feet. "I hope you'll continue to stay away from me and my family for a long time."
Colin said nothing and turned his wheelchair toward the exit. Mary accompanied him to the door and returned to the living room, just making sure he got in his car.
Mason poured the portion of brandy to tumbler.
"Pour me too," Mary said and exhausted sank in the chair. "What the horrible person--"
"Perhaps I am not better than him, Mary--"
"Do not talk such nonsense. You and Stuart like come from different worlds. From different planets... Did not you see? He even not turned against McDermott who cynically used him and almost killed. His mind works in very different way--"
"Yeah. While he's speaking I thought how I did not notice it when I was a child."
"He was unhappy, you feels him like a friend in misfortune."
"Just do not tell me you're sorry him," Mason snapped.
"In some ways I do. Mason, he still lives by his offenses. Angry boy who never grew up. I think if your friendship kept a little longer you'd have dropped it like a hot potato."
"We do never know."
"We must leave it in the past. I do not know how but we need to."
"I think I know what we need now. Wait a minute," Mason jumped up and run to his study.
Mary got up and walked to the window. She feels bad shivering from the monstrous personality of Mason's former classmate.
Five minutes later Mason came back and immediately dragged Mary out of the door.
"Where are you takes me?"
"You'll see.
"Mason, but what's about children?"
"I've already talked to Christie. Do not resist, you like it."
* * *
Mason brought Mary to the coast and led her to a wild beach then through the gallery of caves and in the tiny cove.
"Here so beautiful, Mason! How did you find it?" Mary sat on the high flat rock posing in the water.
"This is my child hiding place," Mason sat down too and leaned back. "No soul knows about."
Mary absently ran her fingers through his hair, looking at choppy water surface.
"Here so quiet..." she whispered. "It seems that we are alone in the whole world."
"We are."
"I think I can understand why you brought me here now. It's feels like a kind of pristine clearness."
"It's true," Mason convulsively sighed and sat up again. "After Colin's visit I longed to clean off his presence. To wash, to bleach, to disinfect--"
"Mason--"
"I know you disapprove me--"
"You're too strongly reacts. The Great Valley School's case is in the past now and ever."
"But Colin and his evil world still exist. They are transformed and reshaped in mimicry, but survived."
"I thought you already know that there is underside, Mason. Why you come across them in court in every day?"
"In the court I do not know these people personally. And now I feel like I came into contact with something nasty thing."
"Stop think about Colin. Forget about Ross and this awful school," Mary hugged Mason, then pulled away and pressed her forehead against his forehead. "They are no longer part of your life. And you have me," she smiled. "And Mickey, and Chip and Sammy. And whole your family. And mine one."
Mason felt the icy grip of the heart begins to melt. The world began to acquire the correct proportions again. Yes, he has Mary. And his family and children. And he never was the killer, even involuntary one.
"You know when Colin told me how I was happy with my great family it occurred to me... When I phoned to father and asked for help I was sure he would help me. Yes, finally I was saved by Sophia, but she was also part of our family."
"Of course, they never abandoned you. Your family is all very fond of each other."
"When I was a kid I wanted to some monster swallowed my father. The day before yesterday I had the dream that I'm stabbing him to death."
"It's all your fear, Mason. Fear of losing the father."
"Why?" Mason sharply pulled back.
"Dreams always interpreting with the way. On the contrary. Your mother left when you were very young. No wonder you're afraid to lose his father too. And the last events returned to you in the past again. All logical."
"You will never believe that I am a monster, will you?" He pressed his face to her hair.
"No, of course. You're not a monster. You are wonderful."
"It's your fault--"
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