Page 49

Forty-Seven

Isaac

S ix months later

“Let’s run that last verse again. I want to try something,” I say into the mic. The producer in the booth gives me a thumbs-up and signals for me to run the chorus again.

On the second round, I give the lines a bit more grit and texture in my voice. I want to really charge the words with more power.

This new album needs to be strong, really strong. On the one hand, I believe my name will sell records as it is, but this is my sophomore album, which means the pressure can either be crippling or motivating. So far, I’m somewhere in between.

“That sounded great,” the producer says through the speaker. “We can add a bass track to that to really make it hit harder.”

“Cool,” I reply distractedly as I pull my phone from my back pocket. It’s ringing with a call from Jensen, who never calls. Worry fills my veins like a rising tide.

“I gotta take this,” I say as I stand from the stool and swipe the call. “Hey, you okay?”

“Hey,” he replies. Immediately, I hear the tension in his voice. “I’m sorry to bug you while you’re in the studio, but your mom just called.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah…it’s your dad. He had a heart attack.”

The blood drains from my face. “Is he…”

“He’s in critical condition in the hospital. She wanted to know…if you wanted to see him.”

“Seriously?” Why the hell would I want to see him?

“I didn’t answer for you, but I figured that if you wanted to say anything to him…maybe this was the time. There’s no wrong answer here, babe. Whatever you want, I’ll support you.”

I chew on my bottom lip as the question weighs on my chest. It’s not a choice I want to make.

“Your mom said your brothers are coming to her house. They’ll make a plan from there.”

I let out a deep sigh. “Okay. I’ll head that way.”

“Want me to meet you there?” he asks with loving concern.

“No, that’s okay. I need to do this on my own.”

“I understand,” he replies. Then, after a beat, he adds, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I mumble before hanging up. It’s at this moment that I realize my hands are shaking.

Without thinking too much about it, I let my producer know the situation. We were about to wrap it up anyway, so it’s not a total loss. Then, I drive directly over to my mother’s house. My brothers’ cars are all parked outside, and I have to take a deep breath when I get out of my car and walk through the front door.

Everyone is sitting around the table when I walk in. It’s just the four of us and Mom. No spouses or kids or boyfriends. I take a seat across from Adam and wait to see what they have to say before I speak up.

It’s Caleb who breaks the tension first.

“Good job, Isaac. Your little publicity stunt killed him.”

“Caleb!” my mother shrieks.

Luke snorts and I break out in a full-belly laugh. I look up to find Adam shaking his head at us while trying to hold back a smile. It feels good to let go of this stress I’ve been holding.

“Me? You threw your boyfriend’s underwear at him.”

“Boys, stop it!”

“To be fair,” Adam adds. “I did release a sex tape we filmed in his office.”

Luke chuckles. “I mean, who here hasn’t desecrated his office?”

“I have,” I reply, holding up my hand.

“We know,” the twins answer in unison.

My poor mother is at the head of the table with her face in her hands.

“Sorry, Mom,” I stutter uncomfortably.

“Yeah, sorry, Mom,” the others reply.

She eventually pulls her hand away and takes a deep breath. On the exhale, she glances around at all of us, and we wait for her to speak next.

Finally, she shrugs. “I may have sent him a little revenge video of my own.”

Our jaws drop collectively. “Holy shit, Mom!” Luke says in an outburst with a shocked smile on his face.

“Excuse me?” Adam asks. “With who?”

“Don’t answer that,” Caleb answers with a look of discomfort.

Meanwhile, I can’t keep my laughter in.

“What?” she asks with a shrug. “I was just as mad as you boys were. But that is not the point.” Waving her hand, she tries to maneuver the conversation back to the topic at hand. “I wanted you all here to tell you I will be going up to the hospital. I’d like to make peace before he goes. Your decision is up to you, and I won’t be mad at you either way.”

“Okay, Mom,” Adam says, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go with you, so you’re not alone.”

“I’d like to go too,” Luke says next. “I think saying goodbye will give me some closure.”

Caleb nods. “As much as I’d like to knock his lights out, I think I’ll regret it if I don’t at least say goodbye.”

Everyone looks at me, and a tightness builds in my throat. I have nothing left to say to my father after what I told him at the house when he came here. I said my goodbye. But what if I don’t go, and I regret it? I don’t care about Truett Goode anymore, but he is still my dad. If I go to say one last goodbye, it would be more for me than for him.

“I’ll go,” I mumble. “To say goodbye.”

My mother gives me a tight smile while my brothers nod in unison. The air in the room is thick with tension, and I almost wish someone would crack a joke again to lighten it, but they don’t. Because sometimes, even the tough stuff needs to be felt.

My family and I all arrive at the hospital about an hour later. My mom leads the pack, walking with us behind her down the hall toward the room where the nurse told us to go.

The hospital brings back tough memories of when I visited Jensen here, and it makes me miss him. As soon as this is over, I’m going to rush home to him and let him wash away all the stress of this day with his mouth and his hands.

My mom presses the door to our father’s room open slowly, and we all file in together. The first thing I register is the sound of a machine beeping with the cadence of a heartbeat. Then we shuffle around his bed and I see my father lying unconscious with tubes and wires coming from his body.

From the moment I see him, I know it’s over. He won’t wake up from this. He’s never walking out of this hospital. He has the look of a man on the cusp of death.

It really shouldn’t hit me with a wave of emotion, but it does. Maybe deep down, I assumed my dad might change. I figured somewhere far down the road when Jensen and I are married and have children, my dad would come around. He’d apologize and become a changed man, and then we might have some semblance of a second chance.

It was a pipe dream all along, but I still hoped for it.

I look over at my mother to find her crying quietly as she stares at the man in the bed, even after everything he’s done to her. I have to remind myself that he was her husband. Her partner. The person she was meant to go through life with. And even if that didn’t work out the way she wanted, it probably still hurts to see him dying.

Even Adam has tears in his eyes, and I realize that all of this is heavier and more complicated than we expected. Most of the people in this room have at least once in their lives promised this man they would dance on his grave. But now…seeing him actually dying…is harder than we anticipated.

“He doesn’t deserve any of our forgiveness,” my mother says quietly with a sniffle. “But maybe…if we gave it to him anyway, we’d find some peace.”

Adam puts an arm around her. “Yeah, Mom. You’re right.”

“We deserve peace,” Caleb adds.

The five of us settle into the hospital room. We reminisce together on memories from our childhood—the good ones only. Our dad doesn’t wake up, but it’s like he’s still in the room with us. The kinder version of him. I like to imagine that somewhere along the way, we broke the cruel, hatred-filled man who was raised on spoonfuls of spite and bigotry. Somewhere in there was a man who loved his family and his community. I’ll mourn him, but I won’t mourn the version that used to treat us like he hated us and refused to accept us the way we were.

I don’t think even Truett wanted to be that version of himself. Not really. The power ruined him.

The long day stretches into night, and the entire time, we stay together as a family.

And sometime around three, the beeping stops.

We huddle around our mother as she weeps. A nurse comes in to call his time of death. And that’s it.

Just like that, it’s over. Three decades of fighting and animosity. Three decades of trying to make that man proud. Three decades of proving to him what a man I could be.

Losing a parent is strange. It feels like flying from the nest without wanting to. Like having a pair of wings slapped on my back and being shoved into adulthood. Which is strange for someone like me who has lived without his parents for over a decade.

But now that Truett is gone, I feel a different type of freedom. And I’m not sure I want it. Because now I have to actually prove what I can do. Now, I’m a man without a father, and the gauntlet has been passed.

Adam, Caleb, Luke, and I hug each other tightly in a huddle and I know they feel it too. We no longer exist in his shadow. Our existence is no longer defined by trying to prove him wrong. We are finally at liberty to be the men we want to be.

After taking my mother home and making sure she’s settled, I head home to Jensen. He’s asleep on the couch when I arrive as if he couldn’t even go to bed without me. I crawl into his arms sometime around daybreak.

“Welcome home, baby,” he whispers.

He just holds me. His hand runs up and down my back in a comforting motion until I fall asleep.

About a month after my dad’s death, Jensen and I are hanging out on the couch when he gets a text from his dad to turn on the local news. I have my guitar resting on my lap, strumming the chords of a new song, when he changes the channel and I see the headline on the screen.

Local Pastor Arrested for Tax Fraud and Misconduct

“What the…”

I don’t recognize the mugshot on the screen or the man being hauled off in cuffs, but Jensen looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Who is that?” I ask, although I have a suspicion.

“That’s Derek,” he says softly as he grabs the remote and turns up the volume to hear the report.

“ A local pastor was recently arrested on charges of tax fraud and misconduct after incriminating files and emails were sent to authorities from the late Reverend Truett Goode, who passed just last month. It is believed that Pastor Derek Reedus, chief administrator of the Eternal Harmony program, was not only laundering funds costing his organization their tax-exempt status but the email also detailed allegations of sexual abuse of minors in the Eternal Harmony program. Reedus is due to face trial without bond.”

“Holy shit,” I mutter quietly as I stare at the screen. The news anchor changes gears to another story, but Jensen and I are still mutely gazing in disbelief.

“Did that just say…” he starts.

“My dad sent emails to the police?”

Jensen turns to stare at me. “Why would he do that?”

“I have no clue,” I reply numbly.

When the news gets around, I get calls from my brothers, who are also trying to figure it out, but it’s too late to get answers, and until this asshole goes to trial, I guess we won’t know. None of us plan to actually go to that trial, anyway.

But it’s not until I crawl into bed that night and cuddle up to Jensen’s side that I figure it out. And the realization is heart-shattering.

Maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe this is just wishful thinking, but as I cozy up to the man I love, I realize that maybe my father changed. Maybe he did that for me after all.

He took a look in the mirror and recognized the monster looking back. And given the opportunity to make it right, he took it. I don’t know if those emails were falsified or if somehow he was able to frame the man who hurt my boyfriend, but I’m not sure it matters at this point.

A bad man does bad things for himself, but a good man does bad things for others. And I think my father just used his power for good. It only took a few emails, but he helped bring down the monster that hurt someone in his family. With his dying breath, he did something truly benevolent.

It was the only thing he could do for me at that point. Our relationship was tarnished, as were all of his family relationships. He broke them all.

I choose to believe that after everything, we might have changed him a little. I choose to believe that love has the ability to warm a cold soul, open a closed mind, and heal a broken heart.

But in the end, it was never about him. It was about us—his sons. My brothers. About the men we became, about how after all the mistakes and all the heartbreaks and all the rebellions, what truly remains are good men.