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way your mother used to look at me and… well, it’s been a long time since I gave her cause to look at me like I was the center of her world.”

    It was another shocking and unexpected admission, and I didn’t know how to respond to it, so I stayed silent, sitting down at the opposite end of the kitchen table. The sturdy piece of furniture seemed to nicely represent the chasm that had always existed between us. Always . If he and I had ever been close, I couldn’t remember it. We may have shared the same blood, but we were strangers in every way that mattered, and sitting there, in another stretch of silence, I couldn’t imagine that would ever or could ever change.

    “So, you know Payne came and found me yesterday.” His attention was focused on his coffee.

    I sighed. “Yeah. He told me. You were at Griffin’s Pub.”

    “I spend a lot of time there.”

    “I’ve heard.”

    “From your mother?”

    “And… and Ava.” I cleared my throat. “She was worried about you, and she would talk to me sometimes.”

    “Ava tried lots of times to get me to admit I have a problem, but you know me.”

    “No. No, I don’t know you.” Despite my efforts, there was a hint of bitterness in my words.

    “James—”

    “I never knew you as anything more than a man who looked at me and saw the biggest mistake he had ever made.” Hating the tears that burned my eyes, I looked away from him. “I sucked at every sport, and I wasn’t… I wasn’t the son you dreamed about having. You resented me for that, and I spent years feeling like a failure. A fuck-up. I spent a lot of years telling myself I hated Payne because he was what you wanted in a son, but then you found out he was gay too, and I finally realized that even if I had been some All-American Athlete, you would have still been disappointed and hateful the moment you found out that I was homosexual.”

    Annoyed with myself, I brushed at my eyes and turned back to my father, to find he was looking at me. For the first time in years, he was looking directly at me, and for the very first time ever, he looked at me like he saw me.

    “You’re right.” His voice was strong and clear, and I realized in that moment that some of the lifelong walls my father had lived behind were crumbling. “After… after Payne left me, at Griffin’s, I realized a lot of what he said was stuff people had said before, and… well, I went home and changed, and then I went down to one of those AA Meetings down at Lincoln Community Center.”

    I had a feeling making that admission—that he had attended an AA Meeting and thereby accepted that he needed actual help—hadn’t been easy for him, and that made it all the more impressive. And shocking. But it was a step, a major step, in what I hoped would prove the right direction, and I really wanted to tell him that, but I found words had suddenly decided to fail me, and all I could do was wait to hear what he intended to say next.

    “They said a lot that made sense and… and yeah, I do have a problem when it comes to drinking.”

    “Does that mean you’re serious about the AA Meetings and getting some help for your problem?”

    “Yeah. Yeah, I’m serious. Doubt it will be easy.”

    “No, I suspect it won’t, but you owe it to yourself and Mom to get yourself together, and you owe it to Ava’s memory, and I’m thinking Aubrey deserves a sober grandfather.”

    “You and Payne, Ava and Matt made you Aubrey’s guardians.”

    “They did.” And here it comes, the outrage, the disgust, the grand speech about homosexuals being abominations . “Look, Dad, it was Ava and Matt’s decision, and Payne and I might not be your choice, but I intend to honor what my sister and her husband wanted. Period. If I have to fight you to do that, I will.”

    “Jamie, I… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you would expect the worst possible reaction from me after the way I’ve behaved toward you over the years, but the