Joseph tried to be a good father, he really did.
It wasn’t as if he had received a good example as a child, his own absent for months at a time, preaching in far away places and returning only to tell him how to be a good Christian, nothing more. As a boy he was proud of him, but his pride was not returned.
He told himself it wasn’t out of some sort of secondhand guilt when he half-forced family activities, dragging the kids to movies or picnics.
This time, his guilt took the form of a day out boating with his son, yacht fully stocked with lunch supplies.
“Chris! Throw me that rope, would you?” The man knelt at the base of the quant, wrestling with the winch to rig up the sail. “Give me five minutes, and we should be up and running!”