“Beckett is pretty wise.” But Beckett also had a father whose love was so evident the whole town looked to the Walker family as a paragon of kinship and togetherness. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry that I’m going to go in there and give him a black eye or anything.”
She laughed again. “Hey, don’t think I didn’t want to. Or that Beck didn’t. Or Noah especially.”
“How is Noah?” Lucas had gone from a mentor with good intentions to probably a complete failure. And the guy was his half-brother? He still couldn’t comprehend it.
“He’s . . . quiet.” She leaned on the porch railing. “You know, now that I know who he really is, I can see some resemblance. Dad’s ears, your nose.” She paused. “Again, I’m not saying I’m suddenly in a great place with all of this. But I do think there might come a day when we look back and realize that at least one good thing came from it. We know our half-brother now. I used to wish I was from a big family like the Walkers, and yet, my own family is bigger than I realized.”
Except it wasn’t exactly their family. It was Dad’s other family. But what good would it do to point that out to Kit? She’d handled this whole thing with so much more grace and maturity than he had.
“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re the younger sibling, Kit. Beck’s not the only wise one in your marriage.”
She squeezed his arm. “He’s in the kitchen—Dad, I mean. There’s leftover waffles from earlier if you haven’t eaten yet. Beckett’s already at the orchard, and he took Noah with him.”
Good. He’d need to talk to Noah eventually, but one difficult conversation at a time suited him just fine.
“Thanks.”
Kit moved down the porch steps. With a sigh of reluctance, he let himself into the house. The aroma of breakfast—maple syrup and coffee—engulfed him as he tugged off his shoes and started for the kitchen.
He found his father just where Kit said he would, sitting at the table with an empty plate and empty coffee mug, this week’s issue of the Maple Valley News open but disregarded in front of him. “Morning, son.”
Son. “Uh, Kit mentioned waffles.” He looked to the counter, opened a cupboard, and grabbed a plate just so he wouldn’t have to look at his father yet.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Same thing Kit had said, but it was filled with more awkward intensity than any one sentence should be able to hold. Lucas didn’t respond. Instead, he took his time adding a waffle to his plate, slathering on butter, syrup, walnuts. As if he had any appetite at all.
Finally, when he couldn’t find any other reason to stall, he walked to the table and sat across from his father.
Dad didn’t wait more than a moment. “I don’t have any excuses, Lucas. But I can give you the facts if that’d help. I met Nancy Johannson three years after your mother died. She was a nurse on the base. You and Kit were still living with your aunt at the time.”
Lucas cut a square from his waffle but didn’t bother lifting it to his mouth.
“Eventually Noah came along. We weren’t married and Nancy wanted him to have her last name. She doesn’t have siblings, wanted to keep the Johannson name going. I didn’t argue. And . . . and I suppose I became comfortable with things as they were, thinking of my life in two parts.”
Lucas couldn’t avoid meeting his father’s gray eyes any longer. “Except there wasn’t really two parts. There was the family you actually cared about and invested in and the family you didn’t.”
“I did come visit, Lucas. When I realized you’d be better off with your grandparents, I moved you here. I thought it was the right thing at the time.” He rubbed his jaw, frustration in the movement. “I know I was—I am—a pitiful excuse for a father.”
“What I don’t get is why.” He cut into his waffle again, but once again, only pushed the bite around his plate.
“Why didn’t I tell you about Nancy? Or Noah? I wish I had an explanation that makes sense. At first, I think I felt guilty for being happy with Nancy but later—”
“No, why you left us in the first place.” Was it the accusation in his brash words that seemed to steal every last ounce of rigidity from his father’s bearing? Or the hurt he wished he could’ve concealed, the rasp in his voice surely giving him away?
Dad shifted in his seat, one hand clenching the edge of the table, the other rubbing his chest. He opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed. “It was a mistake.”
“Obviously.”
“It was . . . it was the horrible decision of a man who didn’t know how to exist without his wife.”
“If you expect me to feel bad for you—”
“I don’t. Lord knows, I don’t expect anything from you.”
Lucas finally gave up on his waffle and abandoned his fork. “Then why are you even here? Did you know Flagg was sending Noah and you suddenly got worried we’d all discover the truth? Or . . . ?” He saw the shift in his father’s eyes, realized what it meant. “Oh. Right. Of course. You were playing chess with Noah’s life just like you did mine. You sent him to Flagg. Probably even suggested to Flagg that he send him to me.”
Dad didn’t argue.
“So maybe you wanted us to figure out everything. Wanted some kind of relief from your guilt.”
His dad looked him square in the eye. “Yes, maybe that. But maybe I’ve also seen enough of my firstborn’s life from afar to know he’s what my youngest son needed. Lucas—”
He stood so swiftly, he bumped the table, sending his fork clattering to the floor. “No. If this is going to shift into some conversation where you tell me you admire the man I’ve become, I don’t want to hear it. If there’s anything honorable in me today, it’s not because of you.”
He sounded wilted and bitter, he knew. More like an angry teenager than an adult who just last Sunday had felt the blossoming of a renewed faith. Who just yesterday had reveled in Jenessa’s whispered assertion that he’d make a good father.
But he was really just a wounded son.
And he wasn’t ready for this.
“Dad, I don’t have any more to say right now.”
“I have one more thing to say—”
He started toward the door. “I’m not in the right head space for this.”
“It’s not about me or the past. It’s about your future.”
He halted.
“I’ve been talking to a JAG officer about appealing your dishonorable discharge.”
He turned. Slowly. “That’s impossible. There’s a time restriction—”
“The review board makes exceptions in special circumstances, and we’ve already convinced them these are special circumstances. They’re going to grant you a hearing, Lucas.”
He could only stare at his father, speechless, numb.
“I have to leave tomorrow morning. Can we talk about this again before I go?”
“I don’t . . . I . . .”
His father’s gaze turned almost pleading. “You had PTSD. That wasn’t taken into near enough consideration during your court-martial. And the JAG who was assigned to your case didn’t have a clue what he was doing. We can get that dishonorable off your record. Son, if you’ll just—”