Larry Gorton was right.

Unfortunately, having correctly predicted what he would say didn't make hearing it any easier.

I needed to make the trip. Find closure. Photograph the scenes. Give the man a proper burial back in Texas. All true. Part of me felt relieved that at least death would have ended his temporal addictions, freed him from his greatest flaws, and released him from the loneliness he'd wrapped himself in since Mom's death.

I reminded myself again that he hadn't always been the man I'd spoken to on the phone two years ago. Anxious. Desperate. Running. Addicted.

Alone.

I also reminded myself that he hadn't been the one driving the truck that killed my grandmother. He hadn't been the lazy doctor who so willingly prescribed pills to my mother that she didn't need. And he hadn't been the one who abused those pills and buried his head in the sand of depression.

Dad hadn't been the one who refused to notice the sun was still rising, even though she wasn't.

Even though we've grown apart, I still want the best for him.

It felt good to think that.

I hadn't allowed myself to consider any alternatives. I was sure Dad had been killed in the storm or its aftermath and his body was waiting somewhere to be identified and claimed.

But what if he hadn't been killed? What if my father was unreachable in Houston or Baton Rouge or some other far-flung city? What if he'd boarded a bus and chosen to start over wherever it dumped him off?

What if he wanted this? What if he wanted me to find him and forgive him and write a song with him?

I pushed that awkward notion aside long enough to call Jordan and ask her to meet me at six o'clock for an early dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant a few blocks from my building.

She walked in, on time as always, and glided into the chair across from me.

"This seat taken?"

"I'm going."

She smiled and took my hands in hers.

"Alone? You're sure?"

I smiled. "Yes."

***

My mother and father were native Texans and high school sweethearts. Dad had been "going with" Mom's biology lab partner, Becky Ravenscroft, and every day they ate lunch together on hard round orange stools attached to the last rectangular table at the back of the cafeteria.

On an otherwise uneventful Thursday afternoon, Dad was eating a Fluffernutter sandwich on Wonder Bread and chatting with Becky when he saw my mother glide in the back door of the cafeteria. She was carrying nothing but a brown paper bag.

Dad had never seen this girl before. "She moved in slow motion," he described. "Her hair was so well-coifed. Her blush so immaculately applied. Her teeth so pearly white."

Dad said she parted the crowd like the Red Sea and walked toward him, scanning left and right for a seat. Just as she saw Dad, the school's all-state tight end yelled and waved at Becky from three tables away.

"Becky Ravenscroft! You good at geometry?"

Becky hopped up and scampered to the "athlete's table."

Mom, oblivious, saw only a lonely young man sitting at the last table in the cafeteria. She approached the boy she would one day marry. "Mind if I sit here?"

"Sure," Dad said.

"You mind?"

"No! I mean no I don't mind. Sure you can sit here." Dad's palms were so sweaty he had to set his sandwich down and wipe his hands on his jeans under the table.

She sat down and began pulling her lunch out one item at a time-plastic bag with Fritos, plastic bag with four pieces of celery, plastic bag with a Fluffernutter sandwich.

Dad said he knew right then he'd spend the rest of his life stocking their pantry with marshmallow cream and peanut butter. Within a week, Dad finally had the great new girlfriend he deserved, and Becky had to find a new lab partner. The new couple was inseparable for the remainder of their junior year and right through high school graduation.

They stayed together, even when Dad was ready to sprint past first base but Mom wanted to save herself for marriage because she'd promised her mother on her sweet sixteenth that she would. Dad strongly suggested she wear more modest clothes. Mom suggested he take cold showers.

When Mom wanted to go to SMU instead of Texas A&M, Dad changed his plans and followed her.

When Dad had a dream during his freshman year that one day he'd design buildings on earth and a temple in heaven, Mom encouraged him to quit premed and study architecture.

Not a year later, Mom decided her heart wanted to teach elementary school children instead of pursue a doctorate and become a professor. Dad bought her a Snoopy thermos and filled it with daisies.

Then Dad felt inspired to spend a semester abroad studying architecture in Italy. Mom took a semester off and followed him.

So when Dad got down on one knee in the shadow of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and asked if she'd make his dreams come true, the answer was easy.

"Yes."

(Excerpt from Recovering Charles and reprinted with the permission of the author, Jason F. Wright)

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission of the author, Jason F. Wright).