Grahame Chandler's suicide note
Cal,
I know it's pointless to write this to a dead man, but you'll do as well as anyone. I haven't got a thing to say to anyone else, and there is not a single living person who cares if I live or die. Oh, your mother will weep crocodile tears in front of the press and go on about how miserable and unstable I was and how your death pushed me over the edge, but you know her. Once the doors are closed, she'll drink a toast or twelve to no longer having to worry about whether I'm going to turn on her. And Sheila will, perhaps, be a bit put out upon finding my corpse and realizing that she is going to have to go job hunting now.
For that matter, assuming you've come to your senses now that you're dead, you have no reason to care either, other than rejoicing in the poetic justice of it all. Killing myself over you gives you the ultimate upper hand, doesn't it? Well, don't be too pleased with yourself. You know you always had control of me, even when you were very young, before I [here a couple words have been violently scratched out] complicated things between us. I could claim that this is a bid to finally take control for myself, but we both know that isn't true. The truth, which I understand to be your favorite thing these days, is this: the moment I got Gliardi involved in your career, I got you killed, as surely as if I held the gun myself, and I am simply too old and sick and tired to live with that.
I heard you that day when you tried to apologize to me. I couldn't answer because I wanted to believe you had something to apologize for, and that leaves both of us acting like idiots that day. Anyone else would have snapped and lashed out at me years before, but you were always a good child, even when it meant you got screwed over. Your mother and I tried our hardest to destroy that, her for your career and I - I suppose I believed that if I could change you into someone unpleasant, I would be freed. That sounds ridiculous and most likely isn't true in the least, but it's the best either of us is going to get. We failed, of course, your mother and I, as your grand gesture last week has proven. I don't know where you got that goodness of yours, Cal. Not from any of us, and certainly not from your father. I have never apologized for anything and I am too old to start now. As for your apology, it is not accepted. You didn't do a single thing that I hadn't had coming for a very long time.
I love you. If you don't believe me I don't blame you. It might be easier for both of us if you didn't.
Grahame
I know it's pointless to write this to a dead man, but you'll do as well as anyone. I haven't got a thing to say to anyone else, and there is not a single living person who cares if I live or die. Oh, your mother will weep crocodile tears in front of the press and go on about how miserable and unstable I was and how your death pushed me over the edge, but you know her. Once the doors are closed, she'll drink a toast or twelve to no longer having to worry about whether I'm going to turn on her. And Sheila will, perhaps, be a bit put out upon finding my corpse and realizing that she is going to have to go job hunting now.
For that matter, assuming you've come to your senses now that you're dead, you have no reason to care either, other than rejoicing in the poetic justice of it all. Killing myself over you gives you the ultimate upper hand, doesn't it? Well, don't be too pleased with yourself. You know you always had control of me, even when you were very young, before I [here a couple words have been violently scratched out] complicated things between us. I could claim that this is a bid to finally take control for myself, but we both know that isn't true. The truth, which I understand to be your favorite thing these days, is this: the moment I got Gliardi involved in your career, I got you killed, as surely as if I held the gun myself, and I am simply too old and sick and tired to live with that.
I heard you that day when you tried to apologize to me. I couldn't answer because I wanted to believe you had something to apologize for, and that leaves both of us acting like idiots that day. Anyone else would have snapped and lashed out at me years before, but you were always a good child, even when it meant you got screwed over. Your mother and I tried our hardest to destroy that, her for your career and I - I suppose I believed that if I could change you into someone unpleasant, I would be freed. That sounds ridiculous and most likely isn't true in the least, but it's the best either of us is going to get. We failed, of course, your mother and I, as your grand gesture last week has proven. I don't know where you got that goodness of yours, Cal. Not from any of us, and certainly not from your father. I have never apologized for anything and I am too old to start now. As for your apology, it is not accepted. You didn't do a single thing that I hadn't had coming for a very long time.
I love you. If you don't believe me I don't blame you. It might be easier for both of us if you didn't.
Grahame