Worth Fighting For

Christ, he couldn’t even figure out what to do with his hands. His heart was thundering in his chest and all he wanted to do was pull that man, that boy he never got to know into his arms and hold him as tight as he could.

My son, his whole body cried. That’s my son.

Daphne stepped away from Jonah, keeping her eyes on him as though he were a snake that might strike. Crossing in front of the Jeep, she stepped up to Patrick and wrapped her sturdy arms around him. He watched Jonah’s stiff back sag momentarily.

What is happening here? Patrick wondered.

“You’re a good man,” Daphne whispered in his ear. Stunned, he tried to tilt his head, to push away slightly so he could see her face, but she held on tight. “The very best. I would have killed for a father like you.” She kissed his cheek, patted his chest and walked away.

Sparing one sharp glance over her shoulder at Jonah.

Odd, Patrick thought, curious about what had gotten into their practical fruit and vegetable supplier.

He looked at Jonah to find the young man watching him. Staring at him across five feet and thirty-plus years. Jonah wore his sunglasses and Patrick longed to tell him to take them off. To let him see his eyes. They were blue, Iris had said, like Patrick’s own.

“Hi,” Patrick finally said into the tense silence between them. Jonah nodded, a regal tilt to his head and Patrick felt more unsure than he had the morning after his wife had walked away, leaving him with two young boys to care for.

The speeches he’d prepared and discarded over the past few months couldn’t be resurrected. He didn’t remember anything he’d thought would be so prudent to say. All those things that would explain the past thirty years without casting blame or judging. All the words he’d hoped would bridge the gap between them vanished. His brain was empty.

What should I say? he wondered, jamming his hands in his pockets. What am I supposed to do with my hands? Why doesn’t Jonah say something? Why doesn’t he take off those damn glasses?

Jonah just stood there.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Patrick said. It was a ridiculous understatement. A mere patch on what he truly felt, as if his life, missing something for so long, was finally going to come together. And this boy, his boy, this strong, handsome and angry man was the key to it all.

But Jonah stared at him as though Patrick were speaking French and he didn’t understand the language.

“Son—”

“Where’s my mother?” Jonah asked, his voice flat.

“She went back to her cabin to freshen up,” Patrick said, stammering slightly. He understood it wasn’t going to be roses with this boy. They had a lot of demons between them that needed to be put to rest. But he had hoped for a better start. Something closer to friendly than this frigid behavior. Iris had warned him that Jonah was not happy about this. That he was reluctant to come. But Patrick truly had not expected there to be no connection. They were flesh and blood after all and it wasn’t as though Patrick had known about him and rejected him. If he’d known Iris was pregnant when she left, he would have moved heaven and earth to get them back.

“I’m sure she’ll be out here soon. My boys are coming, too. Gabe just had a baby and he’ll want to show her—”

“Listen…Patrick,” Jonah said, his voice cutting him like a knife. “I’m not here for a family reunion. I’m here because my mother asked me to be here. And—” his voice grew slightly meaner, mocking “—you probably don’t remember this about my mom but she doesn’t ask for much. So, I’m here for her. I don’t care about your sons—”

“They are your brothers,” Patrick insisted.

“They are no one,” Jonah said. “You are all strangers and you’re going to stay that way.”

Patrick watched this boy and tried to see into him, tried to find him amongst all that attitude. But couldn’t. And it broke his heart a little.

“We’ll see about that,” Patrick said, not ready to give up the fight just yet.

Jonah shook his head. “This isn’t a made-for-TV movie,

Patrick. There is no happy ending for us. Mom had no business trying to get us all together.”

“Don’t you want her to be happy?” Patrick asked.

Jonah lifted his sunglasses before bracing himself against his Jeep. Patrick felt pinned by the hate in his son’s blue eyes. Eyes that were, as Iris had said, identical to his own.

“You don’t know my mom,” Jonah said. “You don’t know what makes her happy. And you sure as hell don’t know me.”

“I want to,” Patrick said, bracing himself against the Jeep, too. There was only so much of this man’s disdain and disrespect he could take. “You are my son and I want to be a part of your life.”

“Well.” Jonah laughed and the sound made Patrick wince. “You should have thought of that thirty years ago when you told your wife you wanted nothing to do with her. Twice.” Jonah put his glasses back on and checked his watch, dismissing Patrick like a waiter at a restaurant. “Tell my mom I’ll pick her up for lunch—”

“Tell her yourself.” Iris appeared on the walkway leading from the cabin she’d been staying in. She wore red—a scarf in her hair and a banner of crimson across her lips. Happiness, a certain motherly excitement radiated from her like raw electricity. It was as if the woman Patrick had gotten to reknow in the past five months was plugged in suddenly, amped up.

She looked like the woman he’d married. The woman he fell in love with so long ago. And seeing that woman again knocked all the wind right out of him.

He barely stopped himself from sagging to the ground.

“Hey, Mom!” Jonah said, his face changing, growing younger, lighter, happier. His body, so rigid, softened as he picked up the smiling Iris and wrapped her in a giant bear hug.

“It’s been too long,” Jonah said.

“Yes,” Iris agreed. She stroked her son’s hair away from his face and pulled off his sunglasses. “That’s better,” she said, smiling into his eyes.

Patrick felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

They were a unit, these two. A family. Who was he, at this point in their lives, to insist on being involved?

There was so little chance of this working, he realized. He understood Jonah’s anger and Iris’s reticence to get him and Jonah under the same roof.

“Well, well.” Gabe, his oldest boy, stepped up next to Patrick while Max, his middle son, flanked him. Patrick could not have been more relieved.

This was his unit. His family.

“I should have guessed that Jonah would use Mom’s maiden name, but I never put two and two together,” Gabe murmured quietly so Jonah and Iris didn’t hear. “The Dirty Developer is our missing brother.”

Patrick’s jaw dropped. “No,” he breathed. “No way.” They’d talked about the news article this morning over coffee and he hadn’t put two and two together, either.

But Jonah did bear a remarkable resemblance to the grainy picture of the man in the newspaper.

My son? Patrick thought. Someone with my blood was capable of such things?

It was obscene. Gross.

“Jonah,” Iris said, keeping her arm around him but pointing him toward Patrick and the boys. “Meet your brothers.”

Max stepped forward, all business, a policeman to the core. “Max,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to meet you.”

Jonah just stared at the hand and Patrick held his breath, waiting for Max’s short fuse to be lit by Jonah’s apparent ingrained disrespect. The last thing this situation needed was Max’s fighting instincts to be stirred.

“Jonah,” Iris admonished the full grown man next to her as though he were a five-year-old. Jonah reached out to shake Max’s hand.