Straight from my battered and broken heart.
I cleared my throat again and took a minute to gather my thoughts. Every small movement from the silent audience caused the old wooden pews to creek and groan. I took a deep breath and started to speak, the squealing feedback from the microphone caused a few shocked noises from the congregation. I waited for another moment before continuing. This time, the sound system cooperated.
“I’m not going to stand up here and say Frank was a saint, because it’s not true,” I started. “He was a troubled man. He turned to his addictions to numb his pain when he thought he had nothing left. There were plenty of times when, after not seeing him for days, I would go over to his house and find him passed out on the floor. I cleaned him up, put out the cigarettes, emptied the ash trays, and threw away the empty bottles. I wouldn’t yell at him. I wouldn’t tell him how badly he was messing up. Instead, I told him how much his help meant to me, what a difference he made in my life. Then, I would beg for him to find his way out of the fog. And he would, for days at a time, sometimes even a few weeks.”
I paused and smiled.
“Those were some really great weeks. There were plenty of other times, actually, when he shouted at me and cursed me to the devil for trying to help.”
I laughed nervously and the audience laughed with me. The double doors at the back of the church opened. A petite blonde woman entered, and some of the standers parted to let her by. She held the hand of a little red headed girl with long braided pig tails. All my nervousness dissipated.
“But he had a good side. A great side really.” I smoothed my hair behind my ears and grabbed both sides of the podium to steady myself. “Mr. Dunn—”
My heart twisted in my chest.
“Frank was a person who made great mistakes—too many mistakes, and he knew it. He was also a man who crumbled under the weight of tremendous grief.” I took a deep breath. “But only because he had experienced tremendous love. When you experience a love as great as he did, it’s easy to let the sadness and anger consume you. It’s easier to turn away from those you still have left and give yourself over to the numbness. He invited the pain in because it helped him remember, and he numbed it with whiskey when it all became too much. He once told me that he was afraid he would forget what Marlena and Mason looked like if he ever tried to move on. Sometimes, he talked about them as if they were in the very next room.”
Everyone knew who I was talking about.
“Now, y’all have had your own experiences with Frank. Some good, some bad... some God awful.”
More chuckles from the congregation. The blonde woman walked up the aisle and sat herself and the little girl in the first pew. Her bright smile urging me to continue. I smiled back at her.
“I can only tell you about the Frank I knew. He was a man who put a roof over my head when I didn’t have one. He was truly the only person besides my grandmother who never judged me and never assumed the worst of me. He never made me explain myself, even when I owed him an explanation. In his own quiet way, he accepted me into his life without question. In some ways, I think he was trying to make amends. He saved me because he couldn’t save his wife and son from death, and he couldn’t save his relationship with his living son. Frank never asked me questions he knew I didn’t want to answer.”
I took a deep breath, my eyes filled with tears as the memories started to flood into my mind of the last four years.
“But his tremendous love wasn’t gone. It didn’t die with his wife and son. It survived, in the way he felt about the son he pushed away, and in the way he cared for me…for us.”
There was a shuffle in the back of the church when the doors briefly opened behind some standers, but I continued on.
“His biggest regret was not the loss of the dead, but the loss of the living. Frank loved his son, Jake, but pushed him away because he reminded him of his loss, and he didn’t know how or where to channel all the pain.”
I held in the tears. These people needed to know about Frank, they needed to know he was a person who should be mourned in death, not made into a freak show legend. My voice was raspy, but I pressed on.
“I’m not making excuses for him, and I’m certainly not saying drinking himself into oblivion was the right way for anyone to handle anything. But, it’s what happened. It’s his truth. Frank died full of regret but certainly not alone. He was a man that you may have known as Ol’ Man Dunn or Mr. Dunn or Frank... or even ‘Bubba’, for those of you who played football with him in high school.” More laughs. “In the end, though, you didn’t know him at all.”
I noticed that some of the church ladies were pressing their hankies to the corners of their eyes, their tears looked real. I was glad to see I’d gotten my point across.
“Franklin Dunn was a troubled man who lived a troubled life. To me, he was a friend, a father figure in his finer moments, and someone I wanted to help when he was in the throes of his agony.”
I paused for a breath.
“I couldn’t save him,” I said. I was holding back the sobs that threatened to come out after every sentence. “But, I like to think I offered him some sort of comfort in these last few years because he sure as hell gave me the same.” There were a few gasps at my use of the word “hell” in church. But most people seemed to understand the point I was trying to get across.
I looked again toward the little girl who was beaming in the front pew, her coppery red hair swinging over her shoulders with ever move of her little freckled head. Her sundress was the same coral color as mine. After I had gotten dressed, she’d insisted we match. “Actually, I like to think we offered him some comfort.” I looked directly at her.
At the mention of we, she crawled over the blonde’s lap and spilled into the aisle. She dashed up to the pulpit, took a running leap and flung herself into my arms. I gave her a squeeze and set her on my hip. I looked at her and asked “Because what did we call Frank, baby girl?”
“Gampaw Fank!” she exclaimed. The whole church laughed at my excited little girl.
“That’s right, baby girl. We called him Grandpa Frank. Did you love your Grandpa Frank?”
“Yes, mama,” she said timidly, earning oohs and aahs from the crowd. She’d melted my heart every day of my life. These people were lucky to even get a glimpse of what she was capable of.
I turned my attention back to the congregation. “I think we should remember Frank for who he was, not for who he wasn’t. He was as much of a Grandpa to my little girl as she’s ever going to get. He was a friend to me when I needed it most, and he was a father who loved his family enough to let their loss destroy him. He loved his son Jake more than anything.” My heart skipped a beat when I said his name, even after all this time. “And he lived with regret every second of every day, right up until the day he died, for not fixing what they once had. Frank may not be missed by everyone here.” I looked at my little girl and planted a kiss on her forehead. “But my daughter and I will sure miss him. Won’t we, Georgia?”
“Yup!” she shouted and clapped her hands together.
Before I could set Georgia down and walk back to our pew, there was another commotion at the back of the church. Both doors swung wide open and the blinding light of midday invaded the small space of the dimly lit church. I covered my eyes with my free hand to block out the light. My daughter buried her head in the crook of my neck.
I caught a glimpse of the person who made the dramatic exit. An awareness washed over me. I could only see his back because he was already halfway down the front steps. What I did see stopped the very breath in my chest.
The familiar site of blonde hair and black leather was all it took.
The doors slammed shut with a bang so loud. It echoed throughout the church and shook the stained glass windows.
Once again, Jake was leaving.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BY THE TIME THE SERVICE HAD ENDED, Jake was long gone. The sad truth of it all was that, if it hadn’t been for Georgia, I would have run after him, right out of the church. I was glad that I hadn’t. I didn’t need another image of his beautiful face haunting my every move. I had enough to last a lifetime as it was. Even if I had gotten the chance to talk to him, what would I have said? He hated me because I’d let him hate me. Because it was easier to have him hate me than it was to deal with allowing someone in my life who I believed didn’t trust me, or what I thought we’d had.
The empty space in my life Jake once occupied would’ve only been made even bigger if he stayed.
I skipped the customary cake and coffee they were serving in the meeting room after the funeral. Tess, Georgia’s babysitter and my assistant at the garage had to get back to the shop to process a new shipment of parts, and I wasn’t about to expose Georgia to the wicked ton for the rest of the afternoon. I’d told her if she was good at church I would take her over to the new playground at the elementary school.
That’s exactly what we did.
Tess had been a godsend since she moved to town from Gainesville. She happily took Georgia at every chance she got so she could spend time with her, which allowed me more time to work on my photos.