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up her purse and keys. She had never asked why I wanted time alone with him, she had just agreed without comment. We never spoke about it after that.

"He doesn't talk much," she said, as she opened the door, "But he can still surprise you. He has thesemoments. I can't explain them."

And with that she was gone and I found myself thrust into the most profound silence of my life. I stood there for a small eternity wondering what to do. The room felt like a vacuum; time suspended and hanging still in the air. I shook myself out of it and untied him.

I took a seat on the sofa just adjacent to his chair and he got up. I watched him go to a set of bookshelves and run his fingers along the wooden edges. He sat back down and was up again just as quickly. This time he went to the front door and jiggled the doorknob. He didn't try to open it. He just seem to like feeling it rattle in his fingers.

Oh God, Jim, what do you have me doing here?' I asked myself. And somewhere in my struggling thoughts, the answer was whispered.

Just talk to him.

When my father returned to his chair again, that is exactly what I did.

I won't tell anyone everything I said to him. That was between me and my father. But I will say that I left nothing unsaid. I covered every heartache and every disappointment. And I made every apology I could think of. There were many. And I told him the secrets of my heart that I could have never told him before. I talked and talked. I wept and talked some more.

How long this went on I don't know. But what I do know is that the whole time I was talking he never got out of that chair, which is to say that he never stopped listening.

And then, just when I thought I was done, I found myself reaching for his hand. I took it in mine and held on to it like a little boy.

Tears ran down my face like rivers and my breathing shuddered and hitched. I swallowed and managed to say the only real thing of importance that I had come to say.

"I love you, daddy."

And with those words every wall that had ever been built in me tumbled down. Every chip I carried on my shoulder fell to the ground and every bit of manhood that I had used to prop myself up through life gave way to a heartbroken boy that had been voiceless for a lifetime.

I looked up through my tears and studied his eyes. I couldn't believe what I saw. He was looking back at me, directly in the eyes, and he seemed to search my face for who I was.

He wanted to know who I was!

And then a small light came into his eyes. But it looked

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