You're going to be here. As the door swung wider, Brett instantly saw that there was no one else in the room,

just the frail shape of a human body tucked under crisp white hospital-issue sheets.

Brett's father's brown hair seemed to be the only thing that contrasted on the white bed.

His half paralyzed head lay up on the pillow.

As Brit stepped closer, his father seemed almost unrecognizable, his frail body rigid and weak.

Brett took a deep swallow, his mind unprepared for seeing his once flamboyant father so deteriorated.

For a brief second he almost forgot about all the hatred he

had built up for him. For a brief second he wanted to help him, comfort him,

make him better again.

But as he rounded the bed and got his first look at his father's face, all those sentimental

feelings stopped.

They were replaced by feelings of utter shock, possibly horror.

Brett had known his father had suffered a stroke that night.

His sister had told him that as Brett had run from the house, their father laid helpless,

seizuring on the floor. Maybe that is where the feelings of animosity from his sister had been born.

Bredded just turned and walked away in his father's time of need,

and now, before him, for the first time,

Brett could see firsthand the effects of the stroke.

Brett's father's face seems sunken in and hollow.

His cheeks gaunt.

His eyes like two empty tunnels that led back through the portals of time.

A wave of sadness washed over breath the likes of which he had never before felt.

...