Chapter 3 – Chapter 3

I sneaked back into the family home—it certainly wasn't the first time I'd done that from the mansion next door—and went directly to take a shower and to spray disinfectant on my knuckles and scrounge around for bandages. I had split the skin on three knuckles. I felt good about that. And I thought it just that it should hurt. I'd left Milo right where I'd put him, flat on his back on the bed and looking up at his bedroom ceiling with a confused look on his face.

After dressing again, I came back downstairs and went into my father's study, looking for that liquor my mother had mentioned earlier. I wasn't a heavy drinker, but if this wasn't the time for a good slug of bourbon, I didn't know what time would be.

After pouring myself four fingers, I wandered over to my dad's desk. All was neatness, just like my dad would have left it. He had been the neatnik in the family. The very "everything in its place" order on the desk led my eyes to an envelope laying in the center of the desktop.

I recognized it as a letter, and I picked it up, my heart doing a flip as I also recognized it as a double-canceled letter from Hot Springs addressed to me—in my father's handwriting. The envelope was still sealed, and I recognized it as one that had come to me when I was in New York and that I had sent back unopened. Just one of a few. From the date, just four years ago, this would have been the last.

My mind went to what my mother had rounded on me about earlier in the day, in as angry a response as I had ever heard from her. It was when she had said that my father hadn't been the one to give up on me. I'd acknowledged at the time that I hadn't taken a phone call from him. I had failed to acknowledge—and this envelope reminded me—that I also had sent letters back unopened.

I didn't like receiving these revelations about the way I had acted in the confrontations with my father—or, rather, lack of them—over my having come out.

It was only right and just that I listen to him now—if only to confirm what I had thought all along about his rejection of me for my choice of lifestyle and partners.

I slit open the envelope and extracted the one large stationery sheet. I involuntarily teared up at the recognition of my father's tight, very correct and legible longhand script in flowing ink. I don't think the man had ever used a ballpoint pen in his life. It was part, I realized, of my belief that he was a man of a previous century—and of Holly Springs—a man who couldn't possibly understand and accept my choice.

I am giving you warning, son, as I think that it's only fitting, that I'm coming to you in the next two weeks. Your sister has told me how to get to your place in New York. She's also told me about the young man you are with and that she likes him very much. I will tell you straight out that I am pleased that you have found someone to love as I found your mother. And beyond that, there need be nothing said . . . there need be nothing beyond that at all. Your mother and I love you, son—equally—and we only want you to be happy. We also want to feel that our family is whole, though.

I was putting together a sermon the other day. One on the prodigal son. Have you ever looked "prodigal" up? One definition is "one who gives lavishly or foolishly," and another is "one who has returned after an absence." I thought about that in forming my sermon, and it occurred to me that the lesson to be harried in a sermon—and you know how I love to harry lessons in a sermon—was giving lavishly or foolishly. I thought upon that from the standpoint of my own sins, and I surprised myself to have the revelation that what I've lavishly and foolishly given was far too much of my time to silence between the two of us. The sermon I ended up with, which set the congregation to buzzing, I can tell you that, was that the son in the parable had come back after a long absence and all was fine in that situation—at least between those two—but what if time had been lavished for too long and the son had died—or the father had—before they came together again? That is the sin, I think, that the parable is getting to down deep. And it is a message to me as much as it is to you, I think.

I believe we should stop lavishing time to silence and any hint of discord between us. Time is short. I am coming to see you, and I hope you will be there to receive me. Not the prodigal son, but the prodigal father. Nothing matters but that you are my son and I am your father. All else matters little. Perhaps your young man will be there too and we can meet. Or you can bring him to Holly Springs someday. Maybe this Christmas.

I found I could not read further, other than glances down to the salutation and finding what I ached to see: "Love, Dad."

I folded the letter and gently inserted it back into the envelope. Then I put the untouched glass of bourbon down on the coaster on the desk, left the room, and went and rummaged around in the mud room off the back porch.

My mother rose from the sofa in the living room and met me in the foyer. I stuffed my skinned-knuckles hand in my pocket, needing more time to form an explanation for it.

"You're going out?" she asked. "Are those your father's boots you have on?"

"Yes, they are. The letter on the desk in dad's study. You put it there, didn't you? For me to find and to read—at last."

"I thought it was time. Beyond time."

"Did you know what was in the letter?"

"I can guess. He told me what he was going to write."

"And yet he didn't come."

"He wrote that the week he died, Clay. He had his heart attack upstairs as he was packing his bag."

"I never knew."

"If you had come to the funeral, I would have told you. You and your father haven't been the only ones harboring hurts. Now, about those boots. They are a bit big for you, I think."

"I think maybe dad's shoes will always be a bit big for me to fill. But I can use these. And I can try."

"But why are you wearing them?"

"I thought I'd go up to Hill Crest and clean the weeds off the grave. I trust I can find the tools I need in the shed out back. But, you look tired, and you shouldn't be straining yourself. Go back and rest."

"There's nothing wrong with me, Clay. Oh, maybe a bit of a cold. But I feel tons better now than before you came home."

"But your illness. The cancer."

"Would you have come home if I'd said anything less than cancer was involved? And in a way, what has been belaboring this family has been a form of cancer. I decided it was time for a bit of surgery."

Before I could say anything, she changed the subject. "There's a potted poinsettia plant in the dining room window you could take with you to lay against the headstone. I'm sure your father would like that."

When I went out on the front porch, I could smell it in the air. And then I could see it. It had started to snow. Maybe miracle of miracles we'd have a white Christmas in Mississippi this year after all. It's something I would have liked Thad to see.

My thoughts went back to the sentences in my father's letter: "Or you can bring him to Holly Springs someday. Maybe this Christmas."

Why not this Christmas? Thad had said he would come if I wanted him to. It was only the 23rd. He had plenty of time to get here for Christmas.