I was lying in April’s bed with one arm behind my head and the other wrapped around April. She was snuggled up to my side as she caught up on her DVR from the weekend. It felt like home to me for the first time in years, but there was something still missing.

I thought about the weekend we spent with her family and wished my family had been like that growing up. We weren’t anywhere close to it. Even when her parents bickered and yelled, you could still hear the love they had for each other. I never felt my parents loved each other. The commitment they made felt more like an obligation than a desire to be together.

I thought back to when Brody said he needed the closure with our dad. We knew Mom loved us. She told us every day. Our father didn’t give us much praise let alone love. We couldn’t do anything right for him. With April laughing in my arms, sounding as happy as I’ve ever heard her, I had to do the same. I needed the closure to become the best man I could be.

April looked at me with tears in her eyes from laughing so hard. “Why don’t you find this funny?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure it is.”

She grabbed the remote and paused the television before she propped herself up onto her elbow and looked at me. “We don’t have to watch this.”

“You can watch it. I don’t mind.”

She adjusted herself to sit up with crossed legs and turned the television off. “Are you still upset about Hank?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not really jealous of him. I’m going to need a little time to think of him as gay. He wasn’t gay when I pictured you two together.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Okay, you need to wipe that image from your head. Please.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried.” I pushed myself up with my hands and scooted back against the headboard. “I’ll be better with him. I promise. You don’t have to stop your friendship.”

She put her hand on my thigh. “If it isn’t Hank, what are you thinking about?”

“Your parents and this weekend.”

“Yeah?” She smiled. “It was a pretty crazy weekend.”

“What were your grandparents like?”

“They were the best.” She smiled bigger. “After my parents married, their parents became best friends. They were always around and always laughing. They’d sneak us kids a few things every now and then that our parents had told us no about. You know, like grandparents do.”

I shook my head. “I knew my mom’s mother, but that was it. I didn’t know either of my grandfathers, and my other grandmother died before I was old enough to know I’d met her.”

“I’m sorry. Why are you thinking about grandparents?”

“I wasn’t really. I was thinking how different our families were when we grew up. You had a stable, loving family. My family wasn’t stable or loving. Mom loved all of us, but she couldn’t make up for Dad. Brody didn’t love anyone and Lila was too young to fix anything.”

“I’m not sure what brought this on, but you’re an amazing man regardless of what your childhood was like.”

“What brought this on is you.” I moved forward, cupped her face, and laid her down before she could protest. “I want to be that amazing man you believe in. I want to be an amazing father some day. Brody’s right. I have to let a lot of shit go before I can be that man for you. I have to do that before I can allow myself to move any faster with you. I know you’ve waited so long already, but will you please give me a little more time?”

She looked into my eyes and glance to my lips. “If I get the man I fell in love with back, I’ll give you all the time you need.” She kissed me.

* * *

I took a deep breath before I knocked on the door. I waited for Lila to leave before I approached, but I was even more nervous that I was doing it alone. I needed to do it alone, though. I didn’t want Lila or Kennedy to hear what I was going to say.

It didn’t take long for my dad to open it, but it seemed like an eternity as I waited. I still hadn’t decided what I was going to say. I didn’t care if we became friends. I didn’t need him in my life. I only wanted to know why he didn’t want me in his.

“I wondered if you were going to stand out there and play with your balls all day or if maybe you didn’t have any since your brother wasn’t here with you.”

He didn’t invite me in, but he didn’t close the door when he walked away. I shook my head and opened the screen door to let myself in. I made sure the door was shut behind me before I walked to the living room. He turned the television off when I stepped through the doorway.

“You put the big boy pants on today, did you?”

“Why are you such an asshole?”

“That’s your first question?” He scoffed. “Not too deep, are you?”

“You want deep? Why didn’t you ever love me?”

“I could ask the same to you. Brody was more your father than I was. You listened to him more than me. If I told you to do something, you looked at him for permission. If he told you to do it, you did it.”

“Brody didn’t scare me like you did.”

“You sure about that? Or was it because he did scare you that you didn’t want to piss him off? You sure as shit didn’t care about pissing me off.”

“So, this animosity is because I looked up to Brody more than I did you. Maybe if you were the father you were supposed to be, I would’ve looked up to you.”

“I couldn’t be!” He stood. “You were too far up Brody’s ass to give me half a chance.”

“Maybe you should’ve given Brody a chance.”

“Always defending him. We’re talking about you and me here and you defend him.” He shook his head and shooed the idea away with his hand before sitting down again. “Your mother was to blame for this. If she had him tested when he was little instead of twelve, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Maybe you should’ve just loved him like a father should’ve, because whether we liked it or not, you were all we had.”

“What I should’ve done was leave your fucking mother. I don’t know how many times I have to say it. I didn’t know he was mine until it was too late.”

“Are you dead?” I raised my voice. “Is Brody dead? There is no excuse for you not being a father to him now. It’s never too late.” I calmed down and exhaled. “You don’t want him. You don’t want either of us.”

“Too many years and hurt feelings. I can’t move past that. I’ll tolerate you boys for the sake of Lila, but don’t ask me for much more than that.”

“You expect me to believe you had hurt feelings?” I laughed. “How the hell did two kids who had no idea what they did wrong hurt you?”

“You hurt me the most.” He nodded. “Not so funny anymore, is it?”

“You’re losing it.”

“I’m losing it? You knew the truth about what your mother had done and you kept quiet. Don’t tell me you didn’t find her diaries. Don’t tell me you didn’t read them. When you showed up here a couple of years ago, I thought maybe you came to talk about what really happened, but you couldn’t get over what happened to Brody. What about what happened to me?

“You think I was happy to know your mother cheated on me? You think I was happy to raise a kid who might not have been mine? I hoped he was for so long, but when your mother refused the test, what the fuck was I supposed to think?

“We had you to repair that void I felt. I thought if I had another kid that I could forget the fact that Brody might not have been mine, but it worked only for a little while. Your brilliant mother went and had another kid before I got fixed when the novelty of you wore off.”

“The novelty? I was your child, not a novelty.”

He had the decency to look ashamed and tilted his head down. “That wasn’t how I meant it.”

“I don’t know what or how you mean things anymore. I don’t think I ever did. I was your son. I am your son. I came to you when I needed a father and I . . .” I released air from my lungs and looked down, unable to continue. I couldn’t convince him I wanted to be a part of his life. I couldn’t convince myself he wanted me to be.

I turned to go, but only got as far as the doorway when he started talking again. “I loved your mother more than anything. I tried to make her happy at first, but I was young. We were both young. We didn’t understand what love meant. We didn’t understand what it truly took to love someone unconditionally.

“When I found out she slept with her ex, it crushed a piece of my soul. Until Kennedy, I haven’t been able to repair that piece. It’s still imperfect and has some sharp edges, but there isn’t a void there anymore. I found a purpose again.”

“I’m glad you treat your granddaughter better than you ever treated your children.” I turned to face him. “It doesn’t make you father of the year, though.”

“I’ll never claim to be that. I know what I’ve done.”

“Do you?” I walked back into the room. “Do you really know what you’ve done? Or, should I say what you didn’t do? We needed a father. We needed that person who was always supposed to be there for us no matter what. We didn’t get that.

“You say I always defended Brody and thought of him more as my father than I thought of you. Who taught me how to throw a ball? Who taught me how to shave? Who taught me that my dick wasn’t going to fall off the first time it got hard or got kicked? That was all Brody, Dad. All of it.”

“I wanted to teach you those things, but you never gave me the chance. Brody beat me to everything. You were shaving before I even knew you had to.”

“Because Brody paid attention. He had to learn those things on his own. He didn’t want me to grow up without a man in my life.”

“I paid attention to you. You never saw me. I was at every football game and most practices. You never saw me. You looked for your mother, Lila, and Brody, but you never saw me.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. You never said you were coming.”

“Yeah, well, your mother talked throughout the whole game. I wanted to watch my son play. I didn’t want to hear her yapping. I got enough of that at home.”

I took a few more steps in and sat back down. “I see you now, Dad. I have a lot left to learn about becoming a man. Brody does, too. He’s gotten further than me with Maggie and the baby on the way.”

He looked at me. “Maggie’s pregnant?”

“Yeah, he hasn’t told you yet?”

“No, but we haven’t spoken much.”

“That’s what he came out here for. He’s going to be a dad, and he wants his dad to get to know his baby. He wants you to be a grandfather.”

“Why the hell would he want me anywhere near his kid?”

“You don’t get it.” I shook my head and looked down before looking at him. “You are still our father. We are still family.”

I stood when he looked away. “Let Brody tell you about his kid. I thought he already had.” I turned to go.

“Brody will make a great dad. He proved that with Kennedy. She was so afraid of him when she first saw him out on that porch.” He laughed. I wasn’t sure I ever heard my old man laugh before. “He took her all over this house and let her touch whatever she wanted while she was on his shoulders. He showed great patience because she wanted to touch or look at everything.” He smiled and shook his head.

“What do you say, Dad? Are you willing to put the past behind us and try to be the family we all want but don’t know how to be?”