Different Sin by Rochelle Hollander Schwab

that time?”
    David nodded. “He likes to spend as much time as he can with his grandchildren. And Mike and Rachel too, of course.” He fell silent, reaching into the bread basket for a roll.
    Zach reached into the basket without taking his eyes from David, his thick brows rising in silent inquiry.
    “To tell the truth, I’m afraid Dad and I don’t have much in common.” David tore the roll in two. He stared down at the two halves. “I’ve always been a disappointment to him. He wanted a son like Mike,” he said, unable to stop himself.
    Zachary stared in astonishment. “I don’t see how you can say that. You’ve told me he could never even bring himself to acknowledge him.”
    “Well, of course, he was ashamed to admit he’d fathered a colored son. That’s not what I meant.” David hesitated, his fingers shredding the roll into crumbs.
    “I think Mike spent more time with Dad than I did,” he said finally. “Dad always had him doing some job around his office. And he was always pleased with Mike. Well, not when he’d grown old enough to defy Dad, though I’m sure he cared for him, even then. But when he was a child, nine or ten, maybe....”
    His words trailed off as his mind shifted back in time to another hot August evening. He sat in his room, staring idly out the open window, watching the shadow of the shed slowly creep across the yard. He could see his father’s stocky figure pass the entrance to the alley, Mike trotting alongside him, lugging the heavy medical kit proudly. He could hear them talking, though their words were too faint to make out.
    David crossed the hall to his father’s room, looking out the window as his father and Mike came around the corner and passed beneath him. He could hear Mike’s words clearly now.
    “Yassuh, but how you knows when his leg be healed enough so he don’t need the splint no more?”
    David watched another moment as his father turned his head toward Mike, his expression softening into a smile as he started to answer. He didn’t feel like hearing any more. He walked back to his room and sank down on his bed.
    He heard the door open. His father’s footsteps sounded on the stairs as he headed to his room to wash up for dinner. He looked in on David. “Good evening, son.” He paused. “What are you doing?”
    David shrugged. “Nothing much, sir.”
    His father sighed. “Surely you could find something worthwhile to fill your time. If nothing else, you could review your school lessons from last term. I’m expecting you to bring home better school reports than last year.”
    “Yes, sir,” David mumbled.
    He forced his thoughts back to the present, surprised to discover that his dinner had been set in front of him. Zach was still staring at him in surprise.
    “He was always so damn eager to learn. Mike, I mean.” David smiled ruefully. “He was just the way Dad wanted me to be, to tell the truth.”
    “The father... manly, mean, anger’d, unjust. The blow, the quick loud word.”
    David blinked. “What’s that?”
    “A poem, or part of one anyway. By a man named Walt Whitman. He’s had a number of poems published in the Tribune the past few years. I’d like you to meet him one day. I warrant you he’ll be known as one of the great American poets, one of these days.”
    “Oh. It didn’t sound much like poetry. Dad wasn’t like that though. I mean, he wasn’t harsh. He didn’t beat me. He never raised his voice much, for that matter. It’s just that he always let me know he was disappointed in me.”
    Zach’s wide mouth curved upward in a smile, goodhumored lines forming above his silvery wreath of whiskers. “I didn’t mean Whitman’s words as a literal description of your father, David. They just came to mind.” He took a bite of his food, chewing with relish, then set down his fork.
    “That’s not quite true, either. I guess you could say that quoting him was my roundabout way of saying it’s the nature of fathers and sons to