“Well, believe it or not, he took the cure a few years ago, went to a rehab out in Minnesota, and wanted to see me. So he came without telling me in advance. He was afraid that if he called, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. I mean, we haven’t talked for fifteen years! So, I answered the door, and there he was! He didn’t want anything; he just wanted to tell me how sorry he was for making a mess of my childhood, and that he wanted to ‘make amends’ and be a part of my life. He had it written out, and said a lot of things, but he ended with ‘I am truly sorry for abandoning you.’ I never thought I’d hear him say that.”

So Rachel had gotten her father back for the last years of his life and, as it now turned out, the last years of her life as well. It seemed he really had become a different man. Years later, he took her to a little house in Akron where he said Alcoholics Anonymous had started. It seemed like he was old friends with the people who were the caretakers of the place, though he swore he’d never met them before. He was a changed man, and became a loving grandfather.

Rachel’s brothers, Pete and Sam, had been fortunate enough to escape the family curse, and each had become successful in his own right. Normally, Mitch and Carolyn would have found it comical to see them together, because they were such an incongruous pair. Pete was tall and thin, with blond hair, and Sam was dark, short, and pretty thick around the waist. Most of all, however, their temperaments were completely different.

Pete had grown into a fairly conservative family man who made a solid living as a real estate lawyer, but Sam was independently wealthy. He had skipped college to play in rock bands, and then opened a recording studio. One day he got a call from Jerry Garcia’s manager, wondering if Sam could squeeze in Jerry and a few buddies later that day. Jerry cut three tunes, credited Sam’s studio as the “best in the Midwest,” and the rest was history. Sam had a magical ear when it came to picking artists and had made a fortune staying ahead of the curve. He was opinionated and often disagreed with conventional thinking, which sometimes got him into trouble. Carolyn and Mitch hadn’t seen either of them since Danny and Rachel’s wedding, and, under normal circumstances, it would have been great to catch up. But today they all briefly hugged and made small talk in a fruitless attempt to overcome the awkwardness of the moment and to delay the true purpose of their visit. But, inevitably, the meeting had to begin.