Ch. 3, Part 3: I See Dead People

(Continued from Part 2.)

At some point after adopting Masaru, Echo got older, and Jade had to move out. We were sad to see her go, but she couldn't live with us forever, just until Echo was old enough.

I almost felt bad for Echo, having to live with a bunch of guys, with the only other girl being her baby sister.

Well, at least she could explain things to Amaranth when she was older, like where not to crawl, why she shouldn't throw her toys everywhere, explaining that no, their parents weren't hurting each other under the sheets...

(Poor kid had to see her parents doing it)

In my defense, I thought the door was locked! And I didn't hear her come in until I was...

Anyway, that wasn't the point. Besides her walking in on us at the wrong time, our daughter had...a pretty decent childhood. She did what most girls her age did, play outside, go to school, watch TV, complain about homework.

Of course, she asked for a treehouse and, well, she got her treehouse. She played for hours in that thing. Sometimes she even slept in there.

Of course, all of our kids used it at some point, so maybe she was just breaking it in.

She always declared herself "Queen Echo" and ask that everyone bow to her. Apparently her subjects were all those stuffed animals she snuck up there.

I think one time she tried to bring up Masaru, but he would have none of that. At least, that's what I thought when he came tearing through the house in a little pink princess outfit.

And well, guess who had to tell her not to put doll clothes on the cat.

Well, after she was told Masaru was the family pet, not a toy, she decided to just go back to playing with that weird doll of hers.

Never understood why she didn't throw it out. It was obviously starting to show signs of wear and tear. It was probably for sentimental value.

Kid had an imagination. Whenever Echo was going through one of her little games, I guess I just played along.

Then her 'games' started taking a strange turn.

One morning, she came running into our room, exclaiming she saw Grandpa, and said that he talked to her.

Well, first off, I was a little upset that I got woken up from a nice dream, which for the record, involved Shark and butterscotch pudding.

And second, I told her that it couldn't be possible. Grandpa died years ago, long before she was even born.

I never told her the circumstances behind his death, but she was too young to know about it anyway, I thought.

But she wouldn't let up. She always told me some relative came into her room at night and talked to her. Sometimes it was Grandpa, sometimes it was Grandma.

One time she said it was some crazy guy in sunglasses. Needless to say, I was getting a little frustrated that she kept the whole thing up.

But maybe I should've listened to her. Instead of scolding her, I probably should've asked her to show me. You know, humor her.

I remember one night, it might've been midnight, or somewhere around there. It was either really late or early in the morning. I couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd just get a midnight snack and watch TV while Shark and the girls slept.

I remember walking to the kitchen door, and I heard the sound of dripping water, and Masaru meowing like crazy. I thought he just got into the sink and was playing with the faucet.

But when I got in there, well...

I didn't know what the hell I saw. Masaru was just sitting there, transfixed on some blue cloud that was floating away.

Given this was at some unearthly hour, though, I thought I was just seeing things. And when Echo woke up, she, again, told me one of our dead relatives came for a visit.

Usually, she quit the whole charade after a while, but she just kept insisting that she was seeing them. So the next time night came, I went to check it out.

Echo wasn't in bed. All I saw was Amaranth sleeping away in her little crib. I'll admit, I was starting to panic. If Echo wasn't asleep, I thought she snuck out to the cemetery.

Turns out she was closer than I thought.

I looked out in the backyard, and there she was. But she wasn't alone. I didn't believe my eyes at first, but I then realized it was Shark's dad Dennis, also known as my old boss.

Echo really was talking to her dead grandpa. And all this time I'd been telling her to stop making things up.

My first reaction was, I felt like a bad father for not believing her. Most people don't have their dead in-laws come for a visit in the middle of the night, but still.

My second reaction was, I thought the Rackets were buried in the cemetery. So how'd they end up in our own backyard?

There was something Shark wasn't telling me. So...I confronted him about it.

He almost seemed to brush it off, like he thought I was crazy. The first time I told him about what I saw, he said I was probably just having weird dreams.

Pretty sure I wasn't the one wolfing down Ghost Chilis. So...I brought him into the backyard the next chance I got.

Just as I suspected, Dennis came back. I'd expected Shark to freak out or...something.

Weird thing was, he was oddly calm about it. He just went up to him and, I could barely hear him, but I could've sworn he whispered something:

"...Dad?"

I was actually kinda amazed at how well he was taking it, seeing his dead father for the first time in who knows how long.

And I wasn't sure how he'd react, seeing as how he knew Dennis used to run a criminal organization.

And Dennis...one would think that after returning from the dead, he'd be screaming bloody murder and declaring revenge on whoever did this to him.

But no...he seemed amicable enough. In fact, after seeing Shark, one of the first things Dennis did was declare that he'd become quite the handsome young man.

I, of course, couldn't help but try to refresh the dude's memory myself, when he saw me.

I introduced myself as a former employee of his, and his now son-in-law. Dennis didn't seem too fazed at the fact that his son married another guy.

If anything, he was happy to have grandkids, whether or not they were adopted. Sure, their last name was Rotter instead of Racket, but it didn't seem to matter to him.

After the old reunions were out of the way, I had to ask him: what was it like on the other side? How was he and the other Rackets doing, after their..."untimely" death?

Dennis got this grim look on his face as soon as I asked him. He explained to me, more or less, that their actions in life, consisting of mostly criminal endeavors, were...regretful.

According to him, everything that he did, when he was alive, was not even remotely worth the unspeakable Hell that he and his family went through for so many years.

 I then asked him, if his death was a fitting judgment. He told me, with a slow nod, that it was. Then I asked what was probably the million-Simoleon question:

"Do you and the rest of Shark's family want a second chance?"

He stood there, all quiet. He bowed his head, as if in thought. I could almost see him remembering all his wrongdoings, when he was alive.

Personally, I wasn't too sure why I was the one asking him. It seemed almost hypocritical, asking a former criminal all this, when I was a former criminal myself.

Then, without saying anything, he slowly nodded. He then went on to say that he saw the results of his life's work. He wanted a second chance. All of them did.

I listened, and though it answered my questions about how they were doing, it still didn't tell me how they wound up in the backyard. I asked Shark about that later.

(At some point, I got a hot tub for their bathroom.)

He didn't seem too willing to reveal details at first. It almost seemed as though he was afraid to tell me. I got him to open up, though, and give his reasons.

Shark's reasons were: he knew they were criminals, that was something that couldn't be denied. He said that he knew they needed to die for what they did.

But that didn't mean he didn't miss them. He got it in his head that somehow, he could move the resting places of his dead relatives, so that he could be closer to them. No matter what he thought of them now.

I knew what I heard. His dad did sound genuinely troubled by what he did in life. But he wasn't sure if it was true, or if Dennis was simply a convincing actor.

There was also the fact that bringing them back would just end up undoing Dudley's actions several years before, meaning that there was a chance we'd create a huge mess for no good reason.

But what could we do? Was it even possible to raise the dead? Was it worth the risk to find out? Could the both of us backtrack something that Shark's uncle did for the good of Twinbrook?

Were we essentially toying with the idea that, as convincing as he sounded, the Rackets 'second chance' likely involved going back to their old ways of trickery?

And in the end, even if they were honestly sorry for what they did, and even if there were a way to give them their lives back...

Was I going to have to play God, just to make the love of my life happy?

............

(A/N: Chapter 3, completed.)