47 

Jim sat forward in his chair. He’d been rehearsing how to get into all this with Tom but hadn’t been able to settle on anything specific. Maybe God didn’t want him to work so hard. Just before he’d left River Oaks to come here, Marilyn had said, “Just be yourself. Your new self. Talk from your heart, not your head.” And then she’d added, “Think of this as just the first of a bunch of conversations you and Tom are going to start having.”

But Jim really wanted to get this one right.

“You want a refill on the water?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, that would be nice.” Jim was about to stand.

“I’ll get it.” Tom reached for his glass and walked to the kitchen. “I can hear from out here if you want to start explaining what Uncle Henry said.”

Jim took a deep breath. The thing was, he wanted Tom to see his face when they talked, see his eyes. “Are you in any kind of hurry?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then I’ll just wait till you get back.”

It didn’t take long. Once they were in place again, Jim decided to just step out of the boat. He’d either walk on the water or sink like a stone. “Tom . . . I wasn’t a good father to you.”

“What? No, Dad. Yes, you were.”

“No, I mean it. I did the best I could with what I knew, what I believed. But you . . . you didn’t experience anything close to the fatherhood of God. That’s what you needed, what God wanted you, your sister, and your brother to experience.”

“What, is that what Uncle Henry told you? That’s the big revelation? That you were a lousy father? I’m not buying it, Dad. You didn’t make me decide to lie the last five months. You aren’t responsible for the mess I’ve made of everything. You’ve been a great example to me, for the most part. Hard-working, faithful, diligent. You’re honest, you’ve got integrity. You’ve been a great steward, following all those principles all those years. So don’t do this, okay? You’re not to blame for this, and I’m not a victim.”

This was going to be harder than Jim thought. It wasn’t coming out right. “Okay, I need to back up a little. I’m not trying to say you aren’t responsible for your choices.”

“Good, because it kind of sounded like you were.”

“But . . . if you agree with that, then you’ve got to allow that it works both ways.”

“I don’t follow.”

“That I’m also responsible for my choices . . . as a father. And I made some bad ones. A long time ago. And I kept making them for a long time. Pretty much until . . . now.”

“What are you saying, Dad?”

“I’m saying the way I raised you, the things I emphasized and modeled . . . all those years. I . . . I majored on minors. Not the things that mattered most to God. I focused on the things that mattered most to me.”

“But they were biblical things. Right? So they couldn’t be all wrong. I don’t know why you’re trashing everything you’ve ever done now. The whole way you raised us. It’s not right. It still feels like you’re blaming yourself because I screwed up.”

Jim sat back, said a quick prayer. God, give me wisdom here. I want to reach his heart. A picture flashed into his mind. “Tom, how many of your matches did I see?”

“What?”

“Growing up, your karate matches?”

Tom’s expression suddenly changed. He looked down at the rug. “I didn’t take karate, Dad.”

“See, that’s even worse,” Jim said. “Okay, mixed martial arts. How many did I see?”

Tom looked up, and his eyes filled with tears. “None. You didn’t see any of them. Mom went to most of them, but you were always . . .”

“Too busy. Say it. I was always too busy.”

But Tom didn’t say it. He wiped his eyes with a tissue. Jim took a deep breath. It was going to be hard keeping it together for the next few minutes. “Here’s another question. Think about this one, Tom. Might take a minute. How many times do you recall hearing these words from me: ‘I’m proud of you, Son.’ How many times? Do you remember?”

Tears rolled down Tom’s cheeks.

Now they filled Jim’s eyes. He tried blinking them back but couldn’t. He had to keep going. “How many times after you did some chore or some job for me did I say, ‘Great job, Son’? That’s it, just . . . ‘You did a great job’ without pointing out some little thing you missed, some little item you forgot?”

Tom reached for more tissues.

“See,” Jim said, “here’s the thing.” His voice was breaking up. “I can’t remember ever saying those words to you, Son. Ever!” He yelled that last word. It startled Tom. But Jim felt so angry at himself. “That . . . that’s what I’m talking about. See . . . your heavenly Father was at every one of those matches. He saw you get every ribbon and every trophy. And he wanted me there too. He wanted you to be able to look up in the stands and see me smiling and waving at you. Whatever else I was doing? Didn’t matter. Not compared to being there with you.

“And you know something else?” Tom was actually sobbing now. Jim was barely able to keep talking. “God was proud of you at least a thousand times while you were growing up, and he wanted me to be the one to tell you. But I missed out on all those holy moments, because I had a different idea of what being a father was supposed to be. I see that now. I did what my father did, and what his father did, and who knows how long this sick thing has been going on.”

Jim stopped. He had to catch his breath. “But it stops here today! With you. And with me. Uncle Henry says it’s never too late to start obeying God. And God’s love is powerful enough to cover a multitude of sins. Yours and mine. So you and I are going to begin a new Anderson legacy today, one where fathers treat their sons right, the way God wants them to be treated.”

Tom stood up, still sobbing, and walked over to his father. He bent down and sat on the floor beside him. Jim reached down and gently put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I am proud of the man you’ve become.”

“You can’t mean that,” Tom said, and buried his face in his arms.

“I do mean it,” Jim said. “God’s forgiven you, and so have I. For all of it. You don’t need to feel ashamed anymore.” Tom continued to cry, making Jim feel so helpless. “We’ll figure this thing out . . . together. I wasn’t there for your matches, Tom, but I’m here now. And I’m not going anywhere.” Jim massaged his shoulder gently. “You might feel like you’re losing this match. Like it’s totally hopeless. But it’s not. And if I were in the stands right now, I’d be your biggest fan. No matter what happens.”

They sat there in silence for several minutes, both sobbing.

After they got their tears under control, they cleaned up as best they could. Tom stood and held out his hand to his dad. They threw their arms around each other, neither wanting to let go. Finally, Tom moved back into his chair and whispered, “I appreciate everything you said, Dad. More than I can say. But I still don’t get how you can say you’re proud of the man I’ve become. Not after all this, the way I handled this situation.”

“I’m not condoning the lies and deception, Tom. And you know God doesn’t, either. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I had raised you all along with the right kind of encouragement and support, if I’d been there for you and really took the time to listen to you when you struggled, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation right now, and you wouldn’t be facing all these financial challenges alone. Instead you had to spend all that time and energy trying to impress me and win my approval. You should have known all along that you already had it, and you had nothing to prove.”

Jim got up, brought his glass to the counter. “After all this crying, guess I need another refill of this ice water.”

“Here, I’ll get it,” Tom said. He brought both glasses to the refrigerator.

Jim sat at a bar stool by the counter. He glanced over and noticed an old broken picture frame lying on its side. Something about it looked very familiar. He reached over and picked it up. “My gosh,” he said. “Would you look at that?”

Tom turned to see what he was talking about. “Oh, that,” he said. “Tommy accidentally knocked it off the wall in the hallway a little while ago. I just haven’t had time to put it back up yet. When it fell, it yanked the anchor right out of the wall.”

“I haven’t seen this thing since . . . since just after your grandpa died.” Jim looked at his father’s scowling face. He had been mad about something that day. What was it? He looked at himself, standing behind his father in the photo. He wasn’t smiling either. In fact, Tom was the only one smiling. “You were, what, four years old when this was taken?”

“That’s what Mom said. The same age as little Tommy now. I’ll get that put up again real soon.”

“Don’t hurry on my account,” Jim said. “Are you going to fix this broken glass? And this frame looks pretty crooked.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Tom said. “That’s exactly the condition it was in when you gave it to me, right after Grandpa died. I didn’t want to change anything about it. It’s the only picture of the three of us together. The only one.”

The way Tom talked, you’d think it was some kind of family heirloom. “You know the story behind this portrait, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Well, pull up a stool here, and I’ll tell you.”