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My Brother David

Andrew Randall

Pastor Roger Chapman was an interesting mix of old school trade skill, ie diesel mechanic, and modern evangelical theology, ie free-will Arminianism. Bradley Cohen, who was a recent addition to Roger's church community, shared the old school trade skill part, but was completely unaware of the many kinds of subtle and modern theological distinctions. The two of them found themselves working together over many hours on an old J4 Bedford ute renovation, the sale of which Roger hoped would raise some operating funds for the little country church where they both attended. Everyone believed it was a great idea given the current ultra-hot market for anything antique and commercial, like old tractors, trucks, and utilities. Brad found the much older Roger quite likeable and was curious as to how such a talented tradesman would lay aside the world of tools and “work” at something as fluffy and dreamy as religion.

As they worked together yet again in another church member's farm shed one Saturday afternoon Brad asked Roger the following, “Being a pastor seems a pretty out of the ordinary choice to take as a job in my opinion, so what made you want to give up a life where work was practical and separated from your personal life like the rest of us and have it all so intertwined like it appears to be now?'

“What, you mean why be a pastor?” Roger replied. “Well now that's a story I haven't thought about for a while.”

“Yes well I'm curious. We've been working here for a good while, and we ain't going nowhere for now, so go for it.”

“Ok, well I grew up in a reasonable sized church like this one. My mum and dad, particularly my dad, were important members who for as long as I can recollect seemed to be involved in running something or organising some church campaign. I think dad was the head elder for a good while which is just below the pastor. So anyway, for all of my growing up years the family, I have one sister Paula, and had one brother David, we were all heavily involved. We were always doing things socially with all the pastors and their ministry teams. Basically I knew nothing else.”

“Sounds a bit restrictive, so how was it?” asked Brad.

“Look, I knew nothing else, none of us did, and it was very unifying for the family. It would actually be difficult to identify anything significant that any of us did that didn't include the whole family, and some other family from the church, at least in the pre-adolescent years.”

“I noticed that you said you 'had' a brother instead of 'have', so what happened there?”

“Yes well that's a crucial part of the whole family story, but there's a lot to it.”

“Well this engine has to be rebuilt so go on and then I'll tell you some of mine when you're all done.”

At this point Roger baulked a bit. The story he was referring to was a complex one but like just about everybody else on the planet he quite liked Brad and somewhere in the back of his mind a small voice seemed to be encouraging him and saying, “Brad really should hear this story”, so after a quick break to refill coffee and tea cups they started back on the engine and Roger continued.

“Well the yes the whole church thing might appear, looking back at it, to be a bit claustrophobic, but then one of the new pastors we had turned up and to all us young guy's delight with three gorgeous young daughters. One of them was named Helen who is, and has been for many decades I'm very pleased to say, Mrs Helen Chapman ”

“Wow, you married the pastor's daughter. Is that why you went into that ministry work?”

“Yes, I guess it must have had something to do with it, but to be honest it wasn't till my early thirties, that I felt convicted to pursue it. The whole idea didn't grab me and I was happy on the tools. Anyway both David and I each started dating one of the new girls. I was very quickly smitten but not so David, he and Helen's sister Beth only lasted a few months.

“Anyway, a bit about David. I was the second oldest, about two years behind Paula, and then another four to David. Mum and dad always called him their surprise package, so he was a little spoiled. I was closer initially to Paula because of our ages, but as we grew he and I got closer and closer. I eventually became the hero big brother and stayed that way till he became a teenager. He sort of became a bit rebellious. I was the good boy, the church boy, the role model, and that's pretty much how it stayed. I got a bit sick of always being the go to example on how a young male should behave when David started to get just a little out of control.”

“That must have put a bit of pressure on you, how did you go with that?”

“Oh well, I guess I've always been a bit conservative, you know a bit responsible, but as David got older I really started to get sick of being the kind of pattern or template of what a good young male should be. You know, things like, 'Why can't you behave like Roger, we've never been called to the headmaster's office for anything he's done!' or 'Have you ever known Roger to do something like that!' Anyway, we did retain some kind of special bond, and to his credit he did come and ask me a lot of times about certain things. Dad was always so involved with the church stuff he tended to become a bit aloof, or a bit distant.”

“Sounds like the church stuff was pretty all-consuming in your house.”

“Yes, I think dad always regretted that he didn't become a pastor, or a missionary or the like.”

“Did he put pressure on you to fulfil his dreams?”

“Oh yeah, but that's not the reason why I decided to go down that path. In the end I'm comfortable that I chose what I did for the right motives, and parental expectations had nothing to do with it, but what it all did was create was a sort of barrier between David and I that never disappeared. And that was a pity. You see everybody loved David, he was a personality plus, mister popularity. Any situation was made more enjoyable by adding David to it. He really was 'mister life of the party', but I started to notice over time, as the pressures of adolesnece arrived, he was becoming more edgy, or something like the class clown.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It's a fine line between those two roles isn't it?”

“Yes, one is just being funny, but the other is attention seeking, and that can lead to using it all to meet some unmet inner need. I really noticed it when Helen and I started to get a bit more serious and he and Helen's sister Beth went there separate ways. I mean I'm glad they did, they certainly were from different mindsets. But when it happened he really went into clown mode, I think to both divert attention and show everyone he was cool. Mum and dad didn't handle it well, after all it was the pastor's daughter. Somehow that was sacred space and not to be meddled with.”

“It really sounds like your mum and dad were totally committed.”

“Yes they were, and I think that there may have been times when that loyalty over rode the sometimes need for human understanding. It was made worse by the fact that Helen and I were doing so well. Honestly David was nearly 20 and they were still saying things like, 'Why can't you be a good boy like your big brother?' And over the next few years I saw a darker side in David.”

“So what happened to him, how did he react?”

“Well it was around this time that I got engaged etc, and we sort of drifted off in different directions. He eventually got engaged to a really nice girl named Jenny whose family attended another church close by, so mum and dad relaxed a bit.”

“That's good, could you hand me those feeler gauges? Is he still around here, and you know going to church, being a good family man, doing his parents proud and what not?”

“Are you going to do those tappet clearances?”

“Yep, I'm onto it.”

At this point Roger stopped his working, sat and stared off into space for quite a few minutes. Brad suspected that his last few questions may have opened up something, because when Roger turned and started getting a few gaskets ready his demeanour had gone a few thout into the dark.

David and Jenny got married a year or so after Helen and I had tied the knot. They seemed to settle down. I helped David get a rep's job for the trucking company I was working for, so once again he was reminded by my parents how his big brother was the 'good boy' and David should be really grateful. By this stage our communications became very matter of fact and shallow, and I sensed that the darkness I thought I saw in him was becoming a bit more noticeable, well at least to me, he only became more and more the class clown.”

“That's all done, you can put the cover on now, I should probably get the hoist ready.”

“Yeah no worries!”

“So how's he going now?”

“Well he's not.”

“Oh mate I'm sorry.”

“It's all good Brad, nobody talks about it, which is a pity. We probably should.”

“Why what happened? Oh mate,” Brad paused briefly before continuing, “only if you want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, Thanks Brad, to be honest I haven't thought about it for a while.”

“Yeah, but only if you're okay.”

Brad sensed a desire in Roger that he did want to 'talk about it”. But for the moment gantries had to be put in place. Once it was in place Roger suggested another cup of tea and a 15 minutes break would be in order.

“So what happened with little brother David?”

“Well after he married Jenny he started attending her church and not very long after they married she fell pregnant. He put on good show for everybody and little Lincoln came along and charmed the pants of us all, he really was a chip of the old block. I wasn't totally sure but he seemed to be, I don't know, more gloomy and depressed, but I was absorbed with my own situation and our cute little Charlotte. We circled each other and compared notes on parenting, and discussed work issues and what not. But it always seemed to me that he was going through the motions and not the 'life of the party' that he had been, and to my shame I never had the time, or the inclination, or the courage to ask him what was going on.

“Then, I think it was not long before Lincoln's 1st birthday, yeah that must have been it because it was just after Charlotte's 2nd, and we'd just announced Helen was 4 – 5 months into her 2nd pregnancy. Anyway one Saturday morning his wife Jenny came home after a morning coffee with her mother's group and found David sitting in the driver's seat with the engine running and a hose from the exhaust...... I'm sorry.... give me a second.... I still struggle when I recount that scene. Jenny told me later that it took her about two decades to get that horrific image in a place where she could remember it and not have an instant anxiety attack. She had Lincoln on her hip at the time, but fortunately he was too little for any of it to sink in......”

“Phew....Roger, that is heavy duty. I take it he committed suicide that morning.”

“Yeah sorry mate, he was dead. 30 or so years later it's still raw.”

Yeah mate I can't even begin to imagine what... I don't know?”

“It's okay Brad, it's actually good to talk about after all this time.”

“Okay Roger, but again, only if you want to.” Brad wasn't sure what to do or say, but he felt something significant was going on here so he he put aside his own desire to want to know the details of what happened and why and just let Roger say whatever he wanted, or needed, too.

So what do you and your family do when confronted with something like that?”

“Well that Saturday morning was just the beginning. I can recall very clearly the look on Helen's face. It was about 10:30ish and I was right in the middle of mowing the front yard when she strode towards me like, I don't know what, I'd never seen her like that before, the shock, the horror, the panic. I still shudder a little as I recall it, and I can tell you I don't ever want to experience that again.”

“Sounds horrific!” At this point the fact that all mechanical repairs had ceased mattered little. It was time to replenish the tea and talk on. “So what do you do with something like that?”

“Well you're in such a state of shock you end up in robot mode. Things like ambulances, police, just who else in the family needs to be notified, funeral companies, I don't know. Anyway the practical and day to day stuff just seems to happen in the immediate. But somewhere along the line shock turns to grief, grief turns to panic, panic turns to raw emotion, and then the family turns in on itself and the questions start. But I get ahead of myself. After the shock of Helen's face I actually don't remember too much. The next thing that I remember was just how drained, confused, and bewildered everyone seemed at the funeral. We all were carrying our own extreme pain, but then so was everybody else who part of the catastrophe. Communication was very cursory and shallow, and nobody wanted to open the Pandora's Box that was the question of why, or what, or what did you know. The only other detail I recall was at the funeral when I was chatting with Jenny's dad and we both simultaneously looked at each other and asked if we knew who the heavily pregnant woman was who looked so upset was? No one knew her so we thought that was that.

“The next few months were horrendous. At some point I made the mistake of commenting that I thought that David had seemed to be depressed, or not himself, for a while. Well talk about pouring petrol on a fire. What do you mean depressed? What did he say? What did he do to make you think that? What do mean 'not himself'? And then the killer, what did you do, or worse, who did you tell and what did you say to him? I became the focus and all I had was a sort of impression, and complete inactivity, or failure to intervene, or enquire as to how he was going. My guilt over my failure to look after my little brother became so monumental I really felt I was sinking. I probably would have if it wasn't for my beautiful Helen. She kept reminding me that I was quite correct to beat myself up if I hadn't been there when David needed me, but right now nobody had a clue as to why this happened. It was all pointless speculation and what the facts were we might never know. They may have all gone to the grave with him, and those who were trying to somehow make me a kind of subtle scapegoat should turn their fingers around 180 degrees and ask why they weren't aware of David's real state of mind. Furthermore Jenny and Lincoln didn't need an extended family who were turning in on each other. What they needed was Christian grace, love and support.”

“How did you go with all that?”

“Well I had to admit she was right. I really got lucky when I met her. She was amazing. I tell you in the lottery of relationship building I got the jackpot first time, up front, and ever continuing. I see many other couples who have to work so hard at it, and for me it just happens. I tell you I am extremely lucky and I can take no credit for it. I've concluded it's just good luck. I lay it all at her wonderful God-centred feet.”

“Mate that's wonderful that you can say that still after all these years.”

“Yes I'm more than lucky, I'm truly blessed. Anyway if my comment on David's gloomy demeanour was like petrol on a fire, well the next thing that happened moved the axis of the earth about 45 degrees. Nobody close to the action saw this coming. About maybe three or four months after the funeral, and all on the same day, that is, my parents, Jenny's parents, and Jenny herself, all received a solicitor's letter. It was a completely out of the blue and unexpected claim. A lady named Wendy Muir had a two month old son named Cameron John Chapman. Note that surname. According to these lawyers his mother had for about 12 months been in an intimate relationship with the boy's father David James Chapman. I can't remember just how the next bit was worded, you know what lawyers are like, very technical, but basically David was the boy's father and his mother would wish him to be included as a beneficiary when David's estate was being considered. She wasn't being a vexatious or greedy claimant but would like the cost of Cameron's education needs to be helped by his father's finances. Talk about a hand grenade in a bucket of oatmeal.”

“Wow, how mind blowing, so nobody saw it coming?”

“Well no, there's more to it, and believe me it doesn't less complicated. 'Oh what a tangled web we weave...' is the cliché. We all tried to keep this new situation quiet while we took time to digest it. So now we introduce a new person into the mix. Rumours started to get around, and at this time the church had a volunteer missionary working between our congregation and Jenny and her families' one.”

“You mean like the young Peter whose working with you now?”

“Yes, and funnily enough his name was Peter as well. And he was as raw and inexperienced as our current bloke. He was actually quite a pleasant young fellow, but as green as a rain forest, really naive with his social skills, but a committed and devout young cove who everybody had good expectations for. My wife's dad was the pastor and he and Peter worked well together. He had a bit of music talent, and importantly he was the same age as David. The three of them, that is David, Jenny and Peter, plus another girl named Glenys started a sort of gospel group and ended up for a time doing mini-concerts on Sunday mornings across all the churches in town. They weren't too bad actually, but importantly Peter and David became mates. And talk about the odd couple. David was quick, witty, worldly, gregarious and engaged and then married. Peter was this extremely earnest young soul who I'd reckon knew absolutely nothing about sex. I'd say his devout nature meant he was certainly a virgin. But they got on. They met each week for practice and then each weekend for performing. I didn't have much to with them or Peter but I do remember Dad and the Pastor talking sometime after the funeral about that something seemed wrong with Peter. He seemed to have been really affected by David's suicide. Then about a week after the bombshell solicitor's letter he rang and asked if we could meet somewhere, just the two us, because he wanted to discuss something important with me.

“So I met up with him one Saturday morning, and while I might not have been able to recall the exact wording of the letter from Wendy Muir's lawyers, boy do I remember the details of the ensuing conversation with Peter. And what he said way back then, well he had every reason to have an excellent recall, you'll see why.”

It now seemed obvious to Brad that there was not going a lot more work done on renovation of the Bedford they were working on. Well at least not on that afternoon. It was pretty obvious Roger felt compelled to talk to Brad and share his story.

He informed me that several months prior, in fact on the Thursday before David's suicide they were all supposed to be meeting for a music practice. When Lincoln came along the music thing had sort of petered out, but they did the occasional special item. On this afternoon both Glenys and Jenny couldn't make it at the last minute. So he and David were by themselves and he said they ended up having a coffee, or what turned out to be several coffees and a very long chat.

“He said that after a bit of small talk Peter suggested to David that he didn't look and sound like he was in a good space. David deferred but Peter with his limited social antenna missed this signal and persisted. He then said when he asked specifically about Jenny and Lincoln's welfare David’s appearance went into a proverbial ‘Whiter Shade of Pale'. David’s wife Jenny was actually a good friend of Peter’s family as well. They had grown up in the same environment. Like the rest of us he had been really happy for both David and Jenny when they decided to marry like good Christians should. And he was even happier for them both when little Lincoln arrived on the scene.

“He said he then pursued about whether Jenny and Lincoln were okay? And after a bit of chit chat about Lincoln he just asked, 'is everything good with Jenny?'

“And this is where David started to open up. Peter pushed on with something like a, 'well what is mate? You know you’re going to have to tell me to shut up or get lost. You look like crap and I’m your mate. I’m not going to leave it.' He told me he had no idea what was about to go down, and who knows what is the correct decorum in a situation like that. And then after a short silence David said, 'Look – I’ve had an affair!'

“Peter said you could have knocked him to the moon and back with the wisp of an imaginary feather. He said he had not the slightest inkling that was coming. And of course he grasped around for something un-foolish to say, then he self-consciously blurted out, “Who with?”It turned out it wasa girl from work. He said that as he stumbled from one inappropriate question to the next as some unexpected details came out.

David was not alright, he said he felt like a piece of garbage and he asked, 'what kind of bastard am I? You know Jenny, she’s such a beautiful person, and I go and do this to her.'

“Peter said he sensed in David’s answer something beyond just guilt. He picked up the sounds of real despair. This made him realise that David’s sharing of this with him was huge, and he Peter was in an important place right now, and as a result he needed to tread carefully. He realised there were more than just one person involved in all this.”

“He said that as he tried to move from his total shock to empathetic mode he tried to make clear the following. You’re not the first person to make that mistake. And that he, Peter, was in no position to neither understand nor pass judgement. We are all sinners. But this is definitely out of character for you David. To which David replied, 'I’m not sure that’s true.' Isn't it funny what you can remember”

“Peter said that his stress ratcheted up so many notches that he decided it would be helpful if he moved to practical mode. His thoughts drifted to little Lincoln, and he became more careful of his words. So he changed tack.

“You can’t go back in time. It’s more a matter now of what you have to do next. He said there’s been many times when he's made big stuff ups, and you realise you can’t change what’s happened, so you try to find remorse. You do what you can to put things right. And you seek forgiveness. And you try and learn from it so you don’t go on to repeat it.

He said David then started ranting, 'So what are you saying? Should I just go and confess to Jenny? Have you any idea what my sanctimonious family will do to me? It doesn’t bear thinking about.'

“At this point Peter concluded he was completely out of his depth. He hadn't the slightest clue about what or where to go with any of this so he went, 'Hell no mate! I don't know much but I do know you need to move from here very slowly and very carefully.'

“Oddly enough, this actually was reasonably sound advice from Peter. And to his credit in his account to me he followed up with, 'We all have a conscience, and in times of serious error, or moral compromise, our own inner voice is not a bad place to start. It's certainly not where we should finish, but when we're drowning the life buoy of moral backbone, offers something we can call on.

“Peter said it appeared that his tension rose and rose in an inverse correlation to David's. Peter was beginning to realise that he didn’t really know who he thought was his mate David. The secrets that were coming out showed him a kind of unrecognisable person. David’s tension on the other hand was easing because he was continuing to confess to somebody else some of his garbage that he has stored to himself internally for months, or maybe years.

“So all this stuff from Peter was new information about David that none of you had a clue about?” asked Bruce.

“Well I thought that he was always a bit too much of a ladies man, you know a bit flirty. Anyway that all seemed to go when he married Jenny. So now according to Peter out came even more revelations. She wasn't the first. He thought women kept chasing after him. David thought he had some demon in him. To which Peter jumped in and said he needed find that part of him that’s causing all this guilt right now and take hold of that and listen to that voice. Who knows, that might truly be the real him. But they both knew he couldn't keep doing what he was doing, and blaming some demon. He was going to have to face reality and stop sometime, so why not right now?”

“Peter said he felt he must have been channelling someone else when he said this latest piece of advice, and then David rendered him speechless for more than just a moment. David informed Peter that she was eight months pregnant. In that moment he said his brain ran at a break neck speed to assist him in making the following instantaneous conclusions. Firstly, David didn’t just ‘have an affair’, from what he has just said he was most likely an habitual offender. Secondly, this one wasn’t just a one-off fling. She was well advanced in her pregnancy and it would therefore seem reasonable to assume he'd been seeing her for an extended period. Thirdly, it was now not some indiscretion that may or may not need to be exposed. She was pregnant and that's impossible to hide. Fourthly, David has had a lot of time, many months in fact, to consider his options. And all that time doesn’t seem to have given him any answers. What Peter felt he was seeing in his mate was total debilitation fuelled by guilt and impending doom. Fifthly, the David Peter thought he knew was a myth. All their church related activities together over so many months were really a sham and David’s apparent life was one huge lie. All that choir singing and prayer groups? Finally David’s life right here and right now was a complete disaster. Now whether it was of his own making, or it was a consequence of these mysterious and alluring women ensnaring his innocence as he seemed to suggest was irrelevant

“Peter said he thought of his good friend Jenny and little Lincoln, the mistress herself, and now the totally innocent child that had come as a consequence of their union, and then all the associated families. This current impasse was infinitely beyond huge and there was going to be massive collateral damage. The David he knew was no great intellectual or strong character. But the last thing the situation needed was a sermon. Peter said he digested all of the above in matter of seconds and he realised the future for a lot of people was going to be seriously affected by what happens over the next few days. David’s complete impotence at working out what to do was now being transferred to Peter’s consciousness along with the despair.

“So he said that they needed to talk long and honestly with each other as soon as they could, and just when Peter thought things couldn’t get worse David said the following. He'd been seeing her for about a year, and they'd’ got very close. When she got pregnant he told her he’d leave Jenny and move in with her. At this point Peter concluded that David was actually more than a complete stranger to him. He was an obnoxious, self-centered, amoral narcissist. Not only was he being unfaithful, but he was doing it at exactly the time his wife was giving birth to their child. It seemed to be the cruellest of ironies that his questionable behaviour had simultaneously fathered another child when he was so quick to promise to discard one of them.

“He then said he'd done nothing and that he'd hoped it would all just go away. Anyway as the pregnancy got more advanced she’ had been ramping up the pressure. And what was causing all the gloom in David, that Peter had picked up on, was that now she was saying that if he didn’t tell Jenny this weekend, she’s said she is going contact her herself on Monday and tell her what’s been happening.

“And this is where Peter's lack of life experience was significant. He suggested that they meet up on Sunday away from everybody else and away from church and have a serious discussion about what needs to happen next. All options need to be considered, but somethings were obvious. The future was going to be very different, and the truth needed to be the starting place because what has happened can't continue. Just what advice would have been appropriate for Peter to have given at that point believe me I have struggled to answer for a few decades now.

“This was Thursday evening. Peter said he rang David as often as he could on Friday and up till Saturday morning. This was pre mobiles. His first major shock came on Sunday when none of my family, nor Jenny's family turned up at church. He surmised quite naively that perhaps David had found a backbone and fessed up, and that they were all together working out what should happen next. I said he was extremely unlearned in the ways of the world. As if that scenario would ever occur. Then Jenny's dad rang him on Monday morning and told him what had happened. The next time I saw him was at the funeral, and I thought at the time that he looked like he should have been in the coffin. Anyway, he was just a volunteer at our church so not long after he said he needed to go home to his mum and dad for a short time as he wasn't feeling very well. And it was not till after we'd got our solicitor's letters, and rumours were starting to spread that he turned up wanting to talk to me.”

“Mate, that is such a mess on so many levels it's hard to know where to start,” Brad replied after listening so intently and holding back the thousands of questions that kept popping into his head. “So what did everyone do?” he lamely ventured and realised that, yes that's what he wanted to know, but that there was no easy answer to that obvious question.

“Well oddly enough this wasn't the last part of the mess. Young Peter said that he was as confused about everything as he had been about anything. And after several weeks of debilitation he actually did something that was very smart for someone so young. He went and spoke to both a solicitor and a psychology counsellor. He told me that in both instances they said exactly the same thing. Firstly he has done the wise thing asking for advice from experts. Secondly, they agreed the situation was extremely complex. Thirdly they both had taken detailed notes of what he had shared. And in the case of any dramatic changes he should come back and speak to them before doing anything. And for the moment there was going to be enough grief and guilt to deal with and that his revelations wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. It was up to the individuals involved, for instance the soon to be mother, to take whatever action might be necessary for them. And maybe some where down the track when the truth might start to leak out he should share it with somebody involved that he felt could be trusted. Therefore he sought out me. Anyway the situation was about to just about make everybody's head explode.”

“You mean it could actually get more complicated?”

“Well yes. Look there had been times when my mum and mydad in particular had been thought to have been just a little bit too sanctimonious or churchy. But in this instance I and just about everybody else thought their behaviour and attitude represented the best of Christian values. After taking much effort to be involved with Jenny and her parents they asked them all if it would be alright if they sought out this Wendy Muir with the intent of acknowledging that Cameron was as much their grandchild as was Lincoln, Charlotte, and now little Roger junior. They might not have approved of their son's behaviour, but that was not Cameron's fault. And he was here now and they would like to be as much of assistance to Wendy as she would be comfortable with. Jenny struggled with it a bit because this claim would eat into her limited finances and security. Ultimately though everyone agreed that they should at least seek legal advice on their potential responsibilities, and of course there was the issue of Wendy's claim on David's estate. The lawyer they consulted complimented them on their generosity of spirit but also suggested that it would be prudent if they requested a paternity test. As trusting souls this intrusion made them a little uncomfortable, but as the lawyer said it was merely dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's. Imagine then if you can the extent of everybody's shock when the results came back that David was definitely not the father.”

“What, you're joking, oh that's incredible, how did that happen? I mean I know how it happens. Oh gosh, I don't what to say.”

“Yes, well neither did any of us. Particularly Wendy and her legal team. And herein is the point to all this craziness. Look at what happened as a result. You know suicide is always a permanent solution to a temporary problem. No matter how profound the depths of despair we feel we are in, the truth is that taking one’s life advantages nobody. Lincoln no longer had a father, mind you without some radical transformation David hardly fulfilled that role. But stranger things have happened. The truly innocent victim in this huge pile of crap was Cameron. His life had the shakiest of starts, and none of us knows to this day what happened to him. And belive we tried to find out. The revelations of his dubious paternity had a massive impact on the emotional and mental health of his mother. Her breakdown in the short term was all consuming and I'm sure deeply affected her parenting capacity. She disappeared completely, and you can't blame her. Apparently she struggled for years and years afterwards and never really came to terms with her guilt over pushing David so hard. She naturally saw that as the trigger which detonated the nuclear explosion, and she carried those scars for who knows how long. The only person who avoided the nuclear storm that descended on to the many, many lives connected to David was the one who actually created the stuffed up mess in the first place. He was resting quietly in his grave completely oblivious to the endless misery he had unleashed.

“Anyway I have since concluded that sometimes the people who suicide are just selfish. But I don't know i've never been there so that's not a view I say publically. Humans are social beings and nothing we do is done in isolation. Those who are left behind have to deal with confused and extremely intense feelings and endless questions that they’ll certainly carry with them for years and years. That whole shermozzle which began with David's lack of morals was a total disaster that benefited nobody.”

The silence at this point was deafening. Roger had just told a real story that would shake the foundations of the most loving and committed of families. But more pointedly for Brad was the unambiguous fact that the whole chaotic scenario was premised on behaviours that he knows full well had tempted him on occassion, and he had once engaged in. Sure he'd been careful. He hadn't been caught out. But perhaps at last he saw himself as a duplicitous bastard who would say and do anything to shag somebody. Or maybe there was the reality of the consequences if a similar slip up happened to him. How would his devoted and trusting wife and his two much-treasured boys had been shattered by this kind of outcome? The truth was he didn't know the answer to that other than it certainly wasn't, whatever it ended up being, something that they deserved. Maybe he should show some kind of fibre or backbone that was absent from David and adhere a little more closely to the

moral framework he had embraced when he followed his wife to church. And remember that when that stone is thrown into the pond the ripples go out, and out, and out, and out, and....


On the other hand there were two sort-of positive things that came out of this monumental debacle. They say it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Firstly the sheer brutality of the consequences that one person's “sin” can inflict on the very innocent others caused Roger to devote his life and his abilities to his vision of the work of God, ie, his little church. This was the answer to Brad's original question. And secondly, and many years later, when the young Peter was himself suffering from prolonged clinical depression, and suicide ideation became his ever and constant companion, he remembered the way such a choice impacted on the lives of those in David's extended family who were left behind. This vivid memory remained as one of the threads that connected the frayed and knotted grip he had on the end of his rope to reality. David's cowardice, and it's ensuing devastation, made sure that in Peter's life he would never do anything like that to anybody.




moral framework he had embraced when he followed his wife to church. And remember that when that stone is thrown into the pond the ripples go out, and out, and out, and....


On the other hand there were two good things that came out of this monumental debacle. They say it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Firstly the sheer brutality of the consequences that one person's “sin” can inflict on the very innocent others caused Roger to devote his life and his abilities to his vision of the work of God, ie, his little church. This was the answer to Brad's original question. And secondly, and many years later, when the young Peter was himself suffering from prolonged clinical depression, and suicide ideation became his ever and constant companion, he remembered the way such a choice impacted on the lives of those in David's extended family who were left behind. This vivid memory remained as one of the threads that connected the frayed and knotted grip he had on the end of his rope to reality. David's cowardice, and it's ensuing devastation, made sure that in Peter's life he would never do anything like that to anybody.





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