It was Jayson Aaron’s funeral this morning. Michelle Lewis wasn’t welcome. That had been made clear early on. Her son still hated her guts for that mess with Yolanda and had fallen in ever deeper with Roland Spencer than ever before. It made Michelle sick to her stomach. All she’d ever tried to do was keep Antwan safe and protect him from men like Roland. Now she was helpless to watch whilst Spencer rode her baby to the top and then sucked him dry once he’d made it there. In truth, Michelle was lucky to still be a free woman. Her brother had stonewalled PCSD’s investigation as it regarded her involvement in things and for that she was eternally grateful. It was why she’d made the drive out to the old prison to visit Chew this morning whilst the rest of Norman mourned for Jayson. A thick pane of glass separated her from her brother but seeing him heartened her all the same. He was the first person that looked glad to see in weeks.

She smiled at Chew and gestured around the prison. “So how are things?”

“Not too bad, I survived this place once. I can do it again. How about you? How are things with Antwan?”

Even the mention of her son’s name cut Michelle to the quick. Had she been dragged into a cell like Chew and kept from her son by force the pain might have been more bearable. Knowing that it was by her son’s choosing that they no longer saw one another made the pain of being apart from him even more searing. 

It hurt her to speak the words but finally she forced them out. “We don’t speak anymore.”

A shocked look appeared on her brother’s face. “What?”

“He’s staying with Jayson’s mother Alicia.”

It was clear in Michelle’s face how heartbroken she was. For once she made no attempt to hide it. Antwan was the only light in her life, the one thing that had lead her out of the darkness, and without him the world seemed a whole lot darker. It was her love for Antwan that had set in motion the events that landed her brother back in prison and Dante Fulsome and Yolanda Thomas in the grave. She rarely thought of Dante and Yolanda. In her mind it was Roland that had put them in the grave.

Chew smiled at and attempted to strike an uncharacteristic conciliatory tone. “He’ll come around.”

“I don’t think so,” Michelle muttered deflatedly. “Not this time.”

Michelle sighed and the pair of them sat quietly for a few seconds. Michelle moved the phone away from her ear some and pressed the head of the phone against her cheek. Her brother stared back at her impassively and ran his hand along the top of his shaved head. There were bags under his eyes, thick, dark ones at that, and he looked more tired than Michelle had ever seen him. For the first time since she’d arrived she thought about Charles and what he’d done for her and her son. Marcus appeared in her face, as he always did when she thought about her brother, but for once the bitterness she felt at that was secondary to her concern about Chew. It was an odd feeling and not one she was sure she could put words to. She knew she had to try for her brother’s sake. 

“You know, I never thanked you for what you did, for being willing to do it for me, for Antwan.”

Chew shrugged his shoulders and leant back in his seat. “It’s fine.”

Michelle shook her head. “No, it’s not fine. The only reason you’re back in this place is because of me and I never even bothered to thank you for it. So thank you.”

Her brother opened his mouth to speak but before the words were out Michelle found herself speaking the three words she thought she’d never say. For years she had hated Chew, she’d even wanted him dead for a time, but sat staring at him looking beaten and defeated she knew she had to say them. As much as it might have felt like a betrayal of everything she’d once stood for and every promise she’d made.

“I forgive you.”

“What?” Chew muttered, a tentative smile appearing on his face. “You’re serious?”

The more Michelle thought about it, the more it made sense, and the more she spoke the more comfortable she felt with the promises she was breaking. “What happened with Marcus, it was so long ago, I’ve held onto the hate for such a long time, longer even than I knew him. It’s ate me up inside, made me do some things I wish I could undo, and holding onto it doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Chew’s eyes grew bleary and red. He moved the phone away from his face for a second and doubled over in his seat. When he looked up at his sister there were tear marks down his cheeks. He cleared his throat and wiped them away before pressing the phone back against his ear. A bashful smile appeared on Chew’s face that Michelle hadn’t seen in years. 

“Thank you.”

She nodded knowingly at him. “Now that Antwan’s gone you’re all I have left, Charles.”

Chew looked perplexed at that. He shook his head, slightly bemused, and invoked the name of a man that had forgiven him for the unforgiveable once. A man that had saved his life. “What about Gus?”

“He blames me for Yolanda,” Michelle said, her face contorted into a mixture of shame and resentment. “I see him sometimes in the street and he doesn’t even look at me. It’s like I’m not even there. Like I’m a ghost.”

Chew nodded wordlessly and pressed his hand against the pane of glass that separated him from his sibling.

“Well, at least we have one another.”

Michelle smiled unconvincingly and reached out and pressed her hand against the other side of the glass. Chew smiled at her warmly and Michelle tried her best to maintain her half-hearted smile. She had forgiven her brother, that much he deserved, but she didn’t know whether she could ever bring herself to love him the way she was supposed to. Antwan was the only person still breathing that Michelle loved but he didn't want anything to do with her. 

For now her brother’s love would have to do.