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“The last time I played in Anaheim, I was watching some late-night TV and I caught this weird reality show about people who’d gotten out of prison and were trying to get their lives back on track. One of the men they followed…well, he looked like Dad. He was in Hollywood trying to be an actor, auditioning for commercials and shit.”
Both Thomas and Galen looked at him blankly. Galen was having trouble putting the words together. Reality show? Actor?
“Did they say his name?” Thomas finally asked.
“They just used first names, and they called him John.”
“That’s Dad’s middle name,” said Galen numbly.
“I know. It sure looked like him. I kept looking in the mirror and comparing. I tried one of those aging filters and it matched up. Here.”
He set down his fishing rod and pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. After scrolling through his photos, he held it up for them. “I took a picture of the TV.”
Damn. It really did look like him. Galen felt sick to his stomach. The sight of his face brought back such intense emotions—fear, love, dread.
“Anyway,” said Billy, tucking his phone back in his pocket, “that’s it. Just thought I’d see if you know anything about it.”
Thomas shook his head. Billy picked up his fishing rod and cast again. Fishing resumed.
Galen looked back and forth between the two of them. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean?” Billy jigged his rod.
“Don’t you want to know more?”
“That’s why I showed it to you.”
“And then you went back to fishing. Did you look up his name when you were in LA? Did you try to find him?”
“No. Why would I? He could have tried to find us when he got out of prison. He fucking didn’t. I don’t give a shit about him anymore.” He jigged the line with so much force that he nearly hit his own head.
Galen knew how he felt. He got it. Except…that blurry TV image of his father swam back into focus. He missed him. That was the goddamn truth. He missed him.
“How come we never talk about him?” Galen asked abruptly.
Billy growled his answer. “What’s to say?”
“I don’t know. Seems like there ought to be something, even if it’s bad.”
For some reason, they both looked at Thomas. As the oldest, he seemed the most likely to have answers to that sort of question. “Because we’re…men?”
Galen scoffed at that. “That’s no excuse. We have brains and mouths. We have emotions.”
Billy squinted at him. “Did your brain chemistry change when you cut your hair? It’s like you’re a different guy.”
“No, but I have been going to therapy. That might have changed it.”
He definitely had his brothers’ full attention now. They both peppered him with questions.
“Where? Since when? Why? Why didn’t you say something?”
Overwhelmed with the flurry of reaction, he flung up a hand. “I started going because…” He pressed his lips together. This was the red line. Telling someone in his family was different from telling his therapist or Brenda. It felt more dangerous, more off-limits.
His brothers waited patiently. The three of them had been through so much together, but those ordeals and challenges had been outward rather than inward. They didn’t talk about stuff going on inside.
“I was having bad dreams. About Dad. But they weren’t really dreams. It was stuff I…I’d blocked out.”
They absorbed that, while he stole a look at their faces. Billy was frowning furiously at the surface of the lake. Thomas gazed thoughtfully across the lake toward the cabin where they’d lived that first winter.
