Sunday is Father’s Day in which we celebrate those who have taken a fatherly role in our lives. And as I did in a post for Mother’s Day, I will acknowledge the fathers who are characters in my books. Several have important roles in the situations I created. A couple are definitely not good people and likely don’t deserve a holiday named for them. They are simply characters who add to the story. Here’s a rundown.
ISABEL LONG MYSTERY SERIES
Isabel Long has run into a number of fathers while investigating her eight cases, thus far. There’s Andrew Snow, the first to pay Isabel to solve his missing daughter’s case in Chasing the Case. Isabel had decided to investigate the cold case on her own, but Andrew, a quiet man, felt she deserved to be paid for her efforts.
Another father linked to a case is Ben Pierce, one of the Old Farts, that group of gossipy men who meet in the backroom of the above-mentioned general store. The secret nickname Isabel gave him is the Bald Old Fart. In Following the Lead, Isabel investigates what happened to Ben’s daughter, who was abducted from the family’s front yard when she was a baby. Ben doesn’t hire her, but his son does.
In my latest, Finding the Source, Stephen McKenzie is the father of the homeless man who asks Isabel to solve his mother’s murder. He and his son, Tom, have an estranged relationship —both say they have disappointed the other. Stephen is on the serious side, no surprise given he owns a funeral home. He and Tom’s mother were divorced.
My favorite father from this series is one who’s dead — Chet Waters from Redneck’s Revenge. His feisty daughter, Annette Waters, hires Isabel. Chet was allegedly too drunk to get out of his shack of a house when it caught fire in his junkyard. He was a “mean son of a gun” who cheated playing poker and was a hotshot pool player. As it turns out, Chet had another side to him, but I will let you read the book and find out.
THE TWIN JINN SERIES
The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, published this spring, is the second in my middle grade series about a family of magical beings, genies, who live among humans. Elwin Jinn is the father of the above mentioned twins, Jute and Fina. A twin himself, Elwin is patient about teaching his children how to use the magical powers they have while not drawing attention to themselves. After all, Elwin helped the family escape an evil master.
THE SWEET SPOT
Edie St. Claire, a young widow, lives with her daughter on one side of duplex owned by her father, who runs the town dump. Well, somebody has to do that job. He’s one of those scratchy kind of guys and a bit of a drinker, but also a caring father . Edie says this about him: Pop may be a crusty so-and-so, but there was something true about him.
NORTHERN COMFORT
Four fathers are in Willi Miller’s life in this dark tale of haves and have nots in a small town following the accidental death of a child.
Junior Miller abandoned Willi and their young son, Cody, who was born brain-damaged. He doesn’t spend any time with his child or even pay child support. But without spoiling the story, he undergoes a change.
Pete Merritt is the kindly grandfather who takes in Willi and Cody after Junior became a deadbeat. After Pete, who Willi calls Pa, heard about her situation, he just showed up at her place and moved her and Cody right then and there. Here, a character, Dave, describes a time Pete played old-time country music at Town Hall. Willi walked her grandfather up the center aisle. The old man wore a cowboy hat and a bolo tie. She treated her grandfather like he was king of the Grand Ole Opry.” He shook his head. “Old Pete was so damned proud to be beside her.”
Her own father, a sad, sensitive man, died when he was too drunk to drive. I will let Willi share a time she remembers. After she and her sister went to bed, their father started plucking a lonely country ballad on his guitar.
She crept from her room and positioned herself behind an easy chair to spy on her father. A bottle and shot glass were on the end table, and between each tune, he’d take a sip. One night, Willi ran to Daddy, begging him to sing something happy for her. She squeezed between him and his guitar, so he set the instrument on the floor. He pulled her onto his lap and kissed the top of her head.
“Oh, sweetheart,” was all he said as he held her in his arms, but then after a long time, he whispered, “Now get down so I can play.”
Daddy started singing “I’m in the Jailhouse Now,” exaggerating his voice to make the tune sound funny. She stayed close, smiling so hard at Daddy he had to do the same with her.
Unfortunately, Joe, the man Willi’s mother married, was a horrible person who abused her. But there’s a reckoning.
THE SACRED DOG
Frank Hooker is a thoughtful man who assumes fatherhood of his wife’s daughter. (There’s a story there.) But he shows great love and attention to the little girl even when her mother moves to Florida. He would make the long trip there and is thrilled when she returns.
On the not so nice side of fatherhood, there is Al Kitchen’s grandfather who helped raise him after his own father died in an accident. Pops was a mean man who made the lives of his wife and Al miserable. How much so? When he was a boy, Al used to keep a blanket in one of the junked cars in their backyard where he hid when his grandfather went on a rage. The best thing he ever did for them was to die among the junks. That sounds harsh, but if you knew Pops you would agree.
That gives you a quick summary of many of the fathers in my books . Here’s the link to my books on Amazon. By the way, the flowering mountain laurel in the photo above grows in our yard along with others planted by the house’s previous owners a long time ago.