“We’re gonna start laying some ground rules. First one is you aren’t allowed to drag yourself through the mud.”

This was all feeling familiar. Not only had he regressed in his perversion, Shad realized again his behavior was reverting to his youth with Mam and Pap. He was dragging Pap back into the role of paternal counselor, and that only added to the shame Shad already carried.

Pap continued. “Second one is you don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to.”

He really didn’t want to answer that question, so Shad silently continued to berate himself.

After several minutes of this, Pap spoke again. “You and Dulsie always did plan on having a family someday.”

Shad turned his head slightly to glance between his fingers at Pap. “What?”

“I know Dulsie wouldn’t sit on news like that very long. Naturally she’d tell you first. So was it Monday or yesterday she told you she was pregnant?”

Shad was so baffled by Pap’s new topic of discussion that it distracted him from his misery. “Monday. After work.”

“Does the pregnancy have anything to do with why you two have a problem all the sudden?”

A hint of panic started to swell inside him. Had Dulsie said something? And if she hadn’t yet, would she say it later? It had never occurred to Shad before that Dulsie would ever betray anything he’d told her in confidence, but Shad remembered the distant look she gave him in the hospital. He had been the first to break the trust between them. It would only serve him right if Dulsie told all his secrets to the rest of the family.

“I wasn’t ready for it,” Shad mumbled.

Pap frowned slightly. “From the day you were married you took the chance of having a baby. I know you knew that. I find it hard to believe that just because Dulsie got pregnant when you weren’t planning on it, you’d – do whatever it is you’re doing.”

Pap was just as crafty as ever. Shad remembered the ways his father would try to turn up information about the existence Shad led when he lived with that woman. And now, as then, Pap was getting too close to the answers he sought, so Shad remained silent.

Pap waited a few more minutes before trying the next angle of approach, which Shad knew he would do.

“I have a confession to make.” Pap glanced toward him. “I didn’t want you.”

“Who would?” Shad mumbled.

“Hear me out. You came to us, in my consideration, at the worst possible time. I was looking forward to being an empty-nester. The last thing I wanted to do was take on the care of some kid who, well, quite frankly, scared me.”

Shad raised his gaze to the glove box. How could Pap have possibly ever been scared of him, especially when Shad wasted his first year with them being scared of Pap?

“I kept expecting you to lash out,” Pap continued. “Start fights, act out, lie, cheat and steal. You had so much bottled up I just knew you were gonna detonate one of these days.” Pap glanced toward him. “But you never did any of that.”

Shad’s initial thought was he never acted out because the boyfriends had taught swift and terrible retribution followed such behavior. And then, when Shad finally did learn to trust his parents, he didn’t act out simply because he didn’t want to. Actually, there was one aspect of acting out he didn’t succumb to only because Shad had never been given the opportunity during those years.

Pap continued. “And then one day I realized that the very thing I didn’t want, that the very challenge I railed against so much, was one of the most significant blessings in my life. One day I realized that you weren’t just the kid I was raising as my son.” He glanced at Shad again. “You are my son. And you’ve made your mom and me proud of you.”

As Shad allowed those words to soak in he realized what a revelation Pap’s confession was. Never, ever, in his wildest, most delusional imaginings, would Shad have ever theorized that Pap didn’t want him around. When he was a kid, when he finally became convinced they weren’t just “fattening him up” for some seasonal human sacrifice that was required by this bizarre religious cult they belonged to, Shad believed his parents had always wanted him. Even when he was a senior in high school, when Shad learned that they had risked so much for him and why, it never occurred to him Mam and Pap were “only” following divine will.

“You still paid too heavy a price,” Shad murmured.

Over ten years ago Shad left a school assignment at home that morning, but a few minutes after he and Mam had left home in the car, Shad discovered it was missing while he was thumbing through his notebook. Since Mam had the time to turn the car around so he could retrieve his homework, she did so, with only a couple of comments about ways Shad could work out to keep him from forgetting such things.

When Mam stopped the car in front of their house, Shad hopped out and sprinted through the front door. He found Pap lying face down in the living room, just in front of the kitchen doorway. Shad ran back to the porch to yell for Mam. Then he dashed back to Pap and confirmed the man was unconscious but breathing.

They drove him to the hospital themselves because it would take too long to wait for an ambulance. Shad sat in the back seat, cradling Pap’s head in his lap, and desperately prayed to a God he was just coming to terms with not to take his father away. Pap regained consciousness during the trip, but he was groggy and disoriented.

At first the doctors thought Pap had a stroke. But when those tests turned out negative, they investigated further and discovered the tumor growing near the base of his skull. They removed it and were able to inform the family it was benign.

But Mam’s and Pap’s problems weren’t over with yet. The only insurance they had was through Mam’s job with the school. It didn’t cover much, and they were left with large medical bills.

Shad, who was usually obtuse about such matters, actually noticed the increased frugality and overheard parts of muttered conversations that were meant to be out of his earshot. Mam and Pap assured him everything was all right, but Shad wondered how these people who were so thrifty and conscientious about saving money were struggling to pay the bills. He wound up taking his concern to Jill.

His aunt believed that since Shad was nearing eighteen, and the truth would be more reassuring to him, he might as well know everything. So Jill told Shad that Mam and Pap shouldered the responsibility of rearing him because the task had been ordained to them. They approached that woman with the offer of adopting Shad from her and paying for the resulting legal expenses. She refused that offer, but told them she would take money for herself if they really wanted to adopt him.

But when Mam and Pap checked into this arrangement with an attorney, they were told unequivocally the law forbade them to pay that woman specifically to give up her child. That constituted purchasing a human being, and thus was considered a black market adoption.

But that woman refused to compromise. So Mam and Pap turned their backs to the law and paid her off.

Mam used – there were plenty who would say “abused” – her position as a school secretary to transfer Shad’s records from St. Louis to the school where she worked. Everything seemed to fall into place, and the Delaneys simply never bothered to go into detail with friends and members of the church how they “adopted” Shad into their home. One of the advantages of living in a rural community was there were few prying eyes to discover their secret.

Then five years later that woman contacted them again, and she demanded more money or else she would turn them in. At first Mam and Pap dismissed her threat – she was as culpable as they were regarding this felony. Then they discovered her tight scheme which did put that woman at risk, but guaranteed Shad would be taken in by the Social Services system they were meant to keep him out of. Besides, they didn’t want to lose him. For Shad’s protection they gave her what she demanded. But it left them ill prepared for Pap’s hospitalization a little over a year later.