His father sat in his favorite easy chair. Incandescent glow from the bargain-basement lamp cast an orange hue across the old man’s face, but did little else to illuminate the otherwise dark room.

Voices from the TV echoed off faux wood paneling that covered the walls. Cigarette smoke swirled into the lampshade from a half-spent cigarette burning in a glass ashtray. If James wasn’t mistaken, that was the ashtray he’d given his father for Christmas back…when was it? James must’ve been around nine years old. Or maybe eleven. His mother was still alive, anyway.

A glimmer of hope settled inside him; his father hadn’t tossed the piece of glass. Maybe the man hadn’t completely tossed their relationship, either. “Hey. What you watching?” James asked.

His father leaned over the ashtray and took a long drag off the cigarette. Blowing out smoke, he picked up the remote and pointed it towards the TV. “Nothing.” He spoke the one word without ever looking up.

That glimmer of hope dimmed, but James tried to stay positive. Somehow, he had the deep conviction that it was up to him to bring his family out of the pall of hopelessness that seemed to have settled. A silent battle raged in his mind as his soul turned to God, but his intellect denied the thought. James shook off the traitorous heart and firmly shut the door to his thoughts. He smiled a little and leaned against the doorjamb. “Oh, yeah? I hear that’s a good show.”

Whatever was on TV had Glen Moore’s rapt attention. He didn’t even an attempt to glance at James. The glimmer fizzled and burned out, replaced by a frustration so complete James struggled to remain civil. His anger at his previous thoughts, the foundering relationship with that Father also upsetting, came out in his words. “All right, look, Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t become what you or everybody else had in mind for me—”

“You think that’s what’s eating me, do you?” his father said, his gaze still glued to the old console TV.

James shrugged. “Isn’t it?”

Finally, that question warranted a glance from the old man. “What you do with your life is your business. We all make our own choices.”

“OK. Yeah. Fine, right; I buy that. So, why are you so angry with me?”

“Who said I was angry? I’m not angry.”

“OK: Disappointed.” James let out a heavy sigh. Was his father going to argue semantics instead of getting to the crux of what had formed the chasm between them?

His father pointed the remote control at the TV, pressed a button—evidently MUTE based on the instant silence which filled the room—and then shifted in the chair a little as he placed his full attention on James.

Finally.

“For no reason you ever explained to me, you run away from here, from me, and from everything that God had planned for you. Now and then you come bouncing back. Most likely when you’re running away from something else. And this time you need answers because the road you’ve been on is so filled with U-turns, you don’t know which way it runs.”