He liked to watch films. The good guys always won in those. A happy ending after something terrible was dead. His mum was dead. She'd always been fragile. Danny had heard it all his life. It got worse after he was born and he supposed, it was why she and his dad had no more kids.
On good days, his mum had been like sunshine and fairy cakes topped with sprinkles. She would be so happy she could light up the greyest skies. On the bad ones, she'd cry and sometimes scream until she tired herself out. “She's just feeling a bit fragile today Danny,” his Dad would say with a smile that never met his eyes.
His mum was his dad's entire world. Danny had known that young. His priorities were Danny's mum, being a police officer and then Danny. He'd accepted it. It had been normal to him.
When his mum died, his dad fell apart. Maybe because she had seemed better. Throwing herself into the village of the year. Danny couldn't remember ever seeing so driven and determined about anything before.
He remembered bits and pieces of the night she died. The screaming, the shouting, smashing up the living room. He'd put the radio in his room on, full blast so he couldn't hear it. After that, it is more of a blur. Danny remembered his dad's broken sobs over her death.
For months afterwards, it was like his dad was dead too. One that was breathing. Danny had felt such relief when he started going out with friends, when started going into work. Even the times he came home with blood on his boots. Always with an explanation. Danny wanted to believe him. He needed to believe him.
Danny threw himself into movies, it distracted his own grief. It drowned out the feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong in Sandford.
Eventually joined the force too. It's what his dad wanted.