Page 40 of Learning at 40

Zack shakes his head. “Somehow, he found me after his release. I was a successful lawyer. I’d married Jeanine. We had the boys. He wanted to reconnect. I didn’t want him anywhere near my children. I assumed he wanted money. He’d been a gold seeker his entire life. He loved money more than his family.”

Zack snorts, still lost in thought. “Twenty years.” He blows out a breath. “I didn’t know him anymore. He wasn’t the man I remembered, and I wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t come to me.”

He blows out another breath. “He divorced my mother during his incarceration. She would have waited for him if he hadn’t. She would have taken him back had he not done her the favor of letting her go. The divorce was the final blow. She wanted a new life. One as far from here as she could get. She moved to Arizona.”

People change, but I knew he didn’t want to hear it. Perhaps his father had turned over a new leaf. Maybe he really did want to reconnect with his son. Maybe he did want money and could pay it back this time. None of it seems to matter, as Zack has no sympathy for his father. The bitterness in his tone speaks of the hurt and harm Robert caused his family.

“Where did he go? After he saw you that one time?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t care.” His harsh tone doesn’t surprise me. His anger does.

“You’ve never tried to find him or contact him?” I question.

“For what purpose? So he can try to harass me into giving him money? He took everything from us. We lost this house, our pride, everything.” His rising tone echoes in the quiet night, and he sits upright, bending a knee and lowering his other foot to the grass. He swipes a hand through his hair once again. Slowly, I sit up beside him and press a kiss to his shoulder before leaning my chin on the muscular curve.

“You need to forgive him. If not for him, for yourself. Maybe forgiving him will allow you to have a . . . better relationship with your boys. Allowing you to give them what you want to give them.”

Forgiveness is the best medicine for a broken heart, Grandfather would say. I don’t think Zack is interested in swallowing that pill, but forgiveness is part of healing, and Zack needs to heal. Zack needs to forgive his father, and maybe he’ll get over the hurdle he has at being a dad. He doesn’t have to understand his father’s motives, although he has some version of them. He needs to let go of the hurt, which is easier said than done. Forgiveness was the only way I could let go of a man I’d never known, who hadn’t stepped up to be a father. Then again, I had a better deal, and cure-all, in my grandfather.

Zack huffs, clearly upset at my suggestion, so I add, “I’m sorry all that happened to you.” Then I back off from dispensing advice.

“It’s the reason I could never abandon the boys.”

“Would you have walked away from them to get away from Jeanine?”

“Never,” he hisses, glancing over his shoulder at me. Everything in that word tells me it had never been a thought. “If she wanted a divorce, she’d have to ask me. I didn’t want to ever feel like I’d given up on my family.”

He would have remained in a loveless marriage instead of losing his children. This redeems him somehow, but I can’t process that yet.

“But you eventually did ask her for a divorce,” I softly state as clarification.

“She was on her second affair. A man can only take so much, and the boys were suffering. They needed a mother.”

“They need their dad, too,” I remind him although perhaps now isn’t the time to mention it. I had a strong sense of Zack burying himself in work to avoid his wife but without realizing he was neglecting his children.

“That’s why I have them.” He had custody of them but was he involved with them? Were they his center or an axis that tipped him to the edge but never fully pushed him over?

Zack sighs. “I shouldn’t have told you all this. Now, you’re going to judge me.”

“Why would I judge you?” My forehead furrows.

“My father stole money. He was a crook, a thief.”

“Your father’s sins were not yours.” I didn’t even need to quote my grandfather to come up with that statement.

“It’s embarrassing as fuck,” Zack huffs.

“He abandoned you,” I remind him, understanding his position. But I’m also about absolution. If Quincy’s children had listened to him, if they’d allowed him to ask for forgiveness, things might have turned out differently for all of them. If Zack could offer forgiveness to his father, he might feel differently about his own position as one.

“He abandoned all of us,” he harshly states again and stands from the lounger, giving me his back as his hands slip into his pockets. “I’m going to go.”

“Don’t leave like this,” I softly plea, and he cranes his neck enough to look at me over his shoulder.

“We aren’t arguing,” he tells me as if I need the clarification. Of course, we aren’t fighting, but a wall has come up around Zack. His defensive tone, along with his body’s position, tells me he’s trying to avoid fight mode and opting for flight instead.

“We aren’t arguing,” I confirm. “But you’re angry, and I don’t want you walking away upset. Just let me hold you.”

“I’m not a child,” he snaps, shifting to face me. Defensive 101. “I’m over it.”