The Freedom of Forgiveness

      staying in. “I have some good news and I have some bad news,” he said. “Which do you want first?”

       I said to him, “At this point it really doesn’t matter.”

       “Well, the good news is that we have the person who killed your mother.”

       My heart dropped and my mouth suddenly became extremely dry. “Oh really,” I said.

       “Yes, that’s the good news,” he said. “But the bad news is that your suspicion was correct, the person who murdered your mother is your younger brother.”

       I stood still for a moment, overwhelmed and flooded with mixed emotions. On one hand I had known it already, but on the other hand, to actually hear it—I just wasn’t prepared.

      The Freedom of Forgiveness

       “Mr. Jackson, are you still there?”

       “Yes,” I said, and managed to compose myself. “Yes, I’m here.” I took a deep breath. “Where is he? What happened?”

       The detective told me that earlier that Christmas Eve morning, Jeff had turned himself in and confessed to shooting my mother. He said that he and my mother had gotten into a heated argument, and he went into one of the bedrooms and waited. When he was sure she was asleep, he opened her bedroom door, stood next to her bed, and at point-blank range, he pulled the trigger.

       Tears ran down my face as I listened. I felt hopeless and lifeless all over again.

       The detective told me they had recovered the gun from the bedroom Jeff had hidden it in. “Now that

      The Freedom of Forgiveness

      he’s turned himself in and we have the gun, you and the rest of your family are free to move back into the house.” I said, “Thank you, sir,” and I hung up the phone. As I walked out of the hotel room, it was as if I was in the twilight zone. I knew Jeff had done it, but now, having actually gotten the confirmation, a million questions seemed to race through my mind. Why did I know he had done it? What did they argue about that made him so angry that he would do this? And why hadn’t my mother locked her bedroom door before laying down to sleep, knowing how Jeff would often come in and out, stealing things and wreaking havoc. As I reached the counter to check out of the hotel, the receptionist’s voice snapped me out of my trance. “How was your stay, sir?”

       I blinked. If only she knew why I was there. “It was good.”

       Before I reached my car in the hotel parking lot, I used a phone booth and I called my stepfather at

      The Freedom of Forgiveness

      the house because I figured he had been contacted by the detective and he was probably at the house about that time. When he answered the phone, he said, “You were right; it was Jeff.”

       I replied, “I know, the detective called me.”