One night a few weeks into the fall semester, Jep came home, gave me a kiss on the forehead and said to Stefan, sitting at the table, “Well, if it isn’t Father Nature.” He got a beer out of the fridge, put it back, and extracted the jug of orange juice. “I can’t let myself have a beer tonight. I’ll never stop. I’ll end up hopelessly drunk. One of my players told me today that he wanted to ask his sociology professor a question, but he didn’t know who she was or where the class met. The tutor just does all the assignments for him. Isn’t that a great system? But if I pointed out the irony, my player would just stare at me and say, What’s up, Coach? It’s his norm. Like he’s been treated like royalty all his life.”

Stefan got up, walked into the living room and stood looking out the window at the tree he’d climbed as a child. Without turning around, he said, “Dad, it’s funny you brought up that whole deal with your players. Because I’ve been thinking about that, not exactly that, but how that whole dynamic applies to me. I have some news for you guys. Not like earth-shattering big news. Just news.”

My mind was a thumb flipping pages: Everything went by. He had AIDS. He had cornered and attacked the guy from the lumberyard. He was on drugs again. When I finally remembered to breathe, my inhale hurt my chest.

“I had an idea,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Ever since I got hurt, actually. It could be stupid. But it’s about those things I was telling you a while ago when I first came home about people who end up in prison... About how you need to change the things people believe about you. About how doing something good has to be a thrill. It’s sort of a program. Julie thinks it’s a good idea.”

That made me smile.

He’d confided in Julie before me. Again.

Well. On the other hand, I had to admit, “If she thinks it’s a good idea, it probably is.”

And it turned out to be a very good idea. It would end up changing my son’s life, and all our lives, in ways that seemed to mean that the possibility of redemption was real and in reach. We didn’t know that then. At the time, I just surrendered to hope, because why not? Hope was always my default setting.

BOOK TWO:
Renewal

5

The germ of the idea came to Stefan when Jep spoke to him one day about how rest was an important part of his healing, about putting off trying to save the world until the day after tomorrow.