We ended up in a house. A house that looked just like the main ranch house—the house I grew up in.
Images form in my head—images I’ve tried my hardest to forget.
Thoughts. Talks with my brother.
Our…
Fuck.
Our suicide pact.
Donny almost drowned in that replica house. Aunt Ruby performed CPR and saved him.
Why was she there? Why were my dad and uncle there? And that older guy…? And the lady…? The baby she carried…?
These were things I never shared with Aunt Mel or any of my other therapists.
These were things I didn’t even recall until this moment.
Fragmented pictures—like looking in a broken mirror—fly through my consciousness.
“Dad…”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to say anything more? Or leave me hanging?”
He clears his throat. “I don’t know, son. First, I should tell you why I came over here.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I made arrangements for your father to go into rehab in Grand Junction.”
“You’re my father.”
“I know that, and you know what I mean.”
“Call him Floyd, then. Not my father.”
“Of course. Floyd has agreed to the treatment. It begins tomorrow. It’s a three-month in-house program.”
I feel nothing. Not a damned thing.
“It’s nice of you to help,” I force myself to say.
“He gave me my sons. I owe him.”
I shake my head. “You owe him nothing. I owe him nothing.”
“You owe him your life.”
“So he shot sperm at the right time. It doesn’t take a genius to do that.”
Dad laughs. “I don’t blame you, Dale. I have no love lost for my own father, but I recognize what he did for me, and the first thing he did for me was give me life.”
“He didn’t do it alone,” I retort.
“No, he didn’t. I owe the same to my mother.”
I nod. I know so little about my grandfather, and even less about my grandmother.
“Your father died in prison.”
“He did. And he deserved to be there. But he also did a lot for me before then, when I was growing up.”
A touch of sadness laces Dad’s tone, and I’m unsure what to make of it.
“My father denied me things I needed at certain times in my life, but he did teach me how to run the ranch, taught me the value of money and a hard day’s work. I owe him for that.”
“Those are things fathers are supposed to do. You did them for me.”
“I did. I’ve tried very hard to be the father my own father wasn’t.”
“You’re a great father.”
“Thank you. That means the world to me. But I’ve kept things from you. I had my reasons at the time, and I’m too old now to second-guess my actions.”
I stare at him, our gazes meeting.
“I expected you to look surprised,” he says, “but you don’t.”
“I didn’t question much when I was a kid,” I say. “I was just glad to be out of that horrendous situation and living in a wonderful place with people who cared about me. But as an adult…”
“As an adult, you question my motives.”
“Not so much your motives. I mean, what you did was amazing, and Donny and I can never hope to repay you.”
“Children don’t have to repay their parents.”
“But we weren’t your children, Dad. You made us your children, and while I’m ecstatic that you did, I never quite understood why.”
“I cared about you. Grew to love you.”
“Of course you did. I’m not questioning that. But you were newly married with a baby on the way, and you took in two troubled boys. Not the easiest thing to cope with. You didn’t have to do it.”
“What might have happened to you if I hadn’t? Your mother was gone, and we couldn’t find your father.”
I sigh. “You had resources most don’t. You could have found Floyd Jolly.”
“We tried, son.”
“Did you?”
He smiles weakly. “Maybe not very hard. Since his name didn’t appear on your birth certificate, we didn’t need his permission for the adoption.”
“And it would have made the adoption process more difficult if he showed up.”
Dad nods. “I doubt he’d have resisted, since he abandoned you years before, but it was one less thing we had to deal with to finalize the adoption.”
“He might have asked for money,” I say.
Dad wrinkles his forehead. “He might have, but has it occurred to you that he hasn’t asked us for anything since he found us?”
I part my lips but then realize I can’t refute his claim. He didn’t ask us for anything when we showed up at his home. He didn’t ask us for anything when we dragged him to a lab the next day for the DNA test. And he didn’t ask for rehab. Dad offered it.
“Doesn’t change what he did in the past,” I finally say.
“You’re right. It absolutely doesn’t.”
“I can’t forgive the abandonment.”
“I understand.”
“I mean, do you forgive your father for everything?”
Dad’s lips form a flat line. He shakes his head. “No, I can’t. I never did.”