KANE GARRETT, from Come Nightfall
Bio provided by author:
Kane Garrett is a 47 year-old former owner of a computer graphics company who had lived in Cincinatti. He lost his beloved wife Gretchen to breast cancer in 1998 and came to town to reveal he was really Paul Harper's biological father. He and Paul's mother Valerie Talbot were forced by Kane's parents to give Paul over to the Harpers. After he told Paul the truth, the two became close. Kane also reunited romantically with Valerie, who came to town to find Paul, but their romance got off to a rocky start when Valerie's unstable husband Drennen tried to kill him and Paul on New Year's Eve at WBRE. Kane had another secret from his past---he had been committed to a mental hospital when he was thirteen for trying to kill his father, who attempted to rape his sister Ingrid. He also just met his long-lost brother Alex Perrini, who was born after Kane and Ingrid left home.
SCENE #1 - from episode #87:
The Grimes Mansion Library
Paul and Tess slowly entered the room. Ingrid rushed to close the door. The air was thick with tension.
"Dad, is this true?" Paul asked, floored. "You were committed to a mental hospital for almost killing your father?"
"Yes," Kane said, his mind and attitude very calm and relaxed. "This is what I wanted to tell you all aliong. Everyone, please sit down." Paul, Tess, and Ingrid obeyed.
"You remember me beginning to tell you about when I was thirteen, and Ingrid was seventeen?" Paul nodded. "Well," Kane continued, that was when everything exploded. Not only was my father beating me nonstop, he had tried to molest Ingrid repeatedly." Paul and Tess looked at Ingrid, who was trembling.
"It's true. Mother wasn't affectionate at the time, and he thought that I could replace her sexually. But I always managed to avoid being raped," Ingrid replied quietly. "We couldn't tell anybody you see. Not back in those days."
Kane picked back up the story. "During Ingrid's senior year---it was a few weeks before graduation---one night, Dad was drunk and decided to go after her again. But this time, he really got violent. He slapped her..."
"And threw me on the bed," Ingrid finished. She took a deep breath and went on. "He started ripping my dress. He was so strong, I knew this was it. I wasn't going to escape him. But before he could actually rape me, Kane ran in."
"I became filled with so much rage," Kane said. I had Dad's shotgun in my hand at the time. It was the only way to stop him. So I aimed, and fired." He looked down for a moment, then looked up again. "I hit him in the lower back and he fell over. Ingrid and I ran out of the house, and the neighbors were on our front lawn. A few minutes later, the police arrived and took me away. Dad survived the bullet wound."
"There was a short trial, and Kane went to a mental hospital instead of jail," Ingrid said, picking up the story again. "Father never did anything about it, because he'd been caught and exposed as a child abuser. I didn't even wait for him to be imprisoned. I left home as fast as I could."
Kane managed to crack a smile. He felt so relieved to be unburdening himself with the awful truth. "Ingy wrote to me frequently, telling me she had settled here. She got a job, moved into her own place. And then she met Marcus."
Ingrid smiled too, a tear of happiness running down her cheek. "He changed my life. I was able to finally escape my painful past, and be happy for the first time in years."
"As for me," Kane continued, "I returned home after six months. Dad was still in jail, and mother was emotionally numb. But there was no more abuse. Four years later, I took off and never returned." He let out a deep sigh of relief. "So, now you know the whole sordid story."
Paul placed a hand on his father's shoulder. "Is this why you've been acting up? Because of the stress over your childhood secret?"
Kane nodded. Paul took his hand. "Oh Dad, it's okay. You were just protecting Aunt Ingrid. I'm not angry with you for not telling me right away. But you know what? I'm glad you did. That took courage. I'm proud of you---both of you," he replied sincerely, glancing at Ingrid.
"I'm just glad you two are coming to terms with your past," Tess spoke up. "I'm sorry your parents treated you two so horribly. No child should have to go through what you've gone through."
"There's something else," Ingrid said, her hearbeat racing. "Mother called me yesterday." Kane's eyes widened. "And she told me something that is going to change our lives forever Kane."
"What did she say?" Kane wanted to know. He couldn't believe his mother had called his sister. The two hadn't spoken since Ingrid was in her thirties.
"For starters, Father is dead." She looked to Kane for a reaction, but not surprisingly, there was none. "And," she said dramatically, "we have another sibling."
Kane's eyes widened again. "She had another child and didn't tell us?" He ran his hands through his thinning brown hair. "Jesus Christ," he muttered.
"She gave him up for adoption," Ingrid replied. "She got pregnant after we left home. She didn't want to raise him in an unstable environment."
"So now, she decided to own up to her part in the abuse?" Kane responded bitterly. "A little too late don't you think?"
Paul was dumbfounded. "I have an uncle out there." Then he flashbacked to last night---when he told the stranger at the diner he looked like his father. Could he be his uncle? He realized it was too far-fetched, but then again, stranger things had happened.
"I think I've found your missing brother," he stated. Kane, Ingrid, and Tess looked at him in shock. "I think he was at the diner last night, and I talked to him."