Shame filled him because he didn’t know the proper way to address his father. Truth to tell, even at twenty-one Delroy hadn’t grown into a man’s responsibility and had remained a boy in so many ways. His life had consisted of Glenda and basketball, chasing a girl and playing ball.
Lightning flashed again and laid his tall, broad shadow across his father’s grave.
“Daddy.” Delroy’s voice was so thick he could hardly speak. “I miss you. Never have stopped missing you. I could have used your counsel a thousand times for every year that’s passed since you were taken from us.” He paused, feeling his hands shaking with fear and uncertainty. “I wish you were here now to talk with. But you’re not.”
Thunder pealed.
Deciding to be as honest as he could because he had always had that with his father, Delroy said, “Daddy, I’ve come to you now because I’m lost.” He let the tears come because he could no longer stop them, surprised that there were so many. Five years had passed since he’d honestly let himself go. All the grief had stayed bottled up inside. He’d kept it in so long that he’d gone numb. He’d seen other men do that and had counseled them not to, but he’d never thought that would happen to him. For him, keeping himself together was all about control.
But control was just an illusion, wasn’t it, Delroy? He swept the flashlight beam over his father’s headstone, remembering how he’d had to touch the carved letters even many months after his father’s burial just to know that they were real.
JOSIAH C. HARTE
PASTOR, FATHER, AND HUSBAND
ABOVE ALL THINGS, BELIEVER
The sight of his father’s grave had made death seem so permanent. Delroy had struggled to find himself in the choking mire of pain and loss that had closed in on him for years afterward. It wasn’t until he’d decided to become a preacher that some of that misery passed.
“I’m sorry so much time has passed since I’ve visited you,” Delroy said. “I’ve not been a good son.” A sob broke at the back of his throat, and he waited for control to return before going on. “After Terrence—after I lost my boy—” His grief overcame him. He closed his eyes and wished that he could feel his father’s arms around him. No place in the world had ever felt safer.
Stained, pale white flower petals gleamed in the light near the headstone. Someone had visited recently.
“Daddy, you were a fine preacher,” Delroy said. “The best I’ve ever heard. I never told you—and God knows I should have—how proud I was to see you take that pulpit on Sunday mornings and sing and preach the Word of God. I swear I’d never seen anything like it, nor have I seen anything like it since. The Lord spoke to you and through you. I truly believe He did.”
Some of the petals broke away from the flowers the rain had beaten down into the mud. They floated away like small boats.
“But I don’t think even you could have explained what happened to Terrence,” Delroy went on. “A father should never outlive his son, Daddy. I tried to tell myself that Terrence had gone to be with you and the Lord. But, Daddy—” pain choked him up—“Daddy, he didn’t know you. You never took Terrence fishing the way you took me fishing. Never heard your stories or sat with you on a riverbank while you cooked our catch. Never heard you sing gospel songs in the quiet of the night when we camped out. Terrence didn’t know you, and I miss him so much. I still miss him. Taking him like that wasn’t right, Daddy. There’s a hole inside me that nothing can fill.”
Feeling weary and hopeless, Delroy knelt, no longer trusting himself to stand. He placed the flashlight on the ground so the beam washed over the headstone. He laid the shovel beside him. The muddy ground soaked the knees of his pants with wet and cold.
“Daddy, if you were here, maybe things wouldn’t seem the way they do,” Delroy said. “You knew all about the end times. You always told me they were just around the corner, that we would live to see them. You were right, even if I never believed it. You almost lived to see them, too.”
The heartbreaking images of his father’s body laid out on the stainless-steel table returned to Delroy with savage force. Since a murderer had taken Josiah Harte’s life, the state medical examiner’s office had taken the body for an autopsy. The funeral home, the people who had known and loved Josiah, hadn’t gotten his body until after the forensics investigators had finished.
“I know you’re in heaven, Daddy,” Delroy croaked. “And I know you’ve looked down on me from time to time. I swear I could feel you then. I can look back and probably name the days when I felt close to you. I only hope you’re not watching over me tonight.”
Delroy leaned forward and placed his hands on his father’s grave. He wasn’t surprised to find that he was shaking.
“I failed you, Daddy,” he whispered, too ashamed to admit that out loud. But he knew he had to say it. His father had always seemed to know even the things he had tried to hide. “I never once told you that I wanted to become a preacher. I didn’t know it myself. All I ever wanted for myself when you were alive was a career as a professional basketball player.”
Josiah Harte had sat in the bleachers at a number of county league, junior high, high school, and college games.
“I was selfish as a young man, Daddy, and I know you saw that in me. But I wouldn’t listen. The sad thing was that I didn’t learn enough then or even when you were
