A certain brand of optimism had been required for James Franklin to forgive his father, to forget their past. But now it was being tested. In his father\u2019s new home, Franklin listened to his father\u2019s new wife deny his father\u2019s sins against him, his sister and their mother.<\/p>\n
Then Franklin\u2019s father, also named James, stopped her. It was true, he said. He had done awful things to his former wife and their two children. A proud, stubborn man who was now defeated and dying, Franklin finally admitted this to his son. He was painfully frail, an oxygen tank by his side, cancer attacking his spine and lungs. Still, a sense of righteousness filled the younger Franklin. He wanted his mother and sister to feel it too.<\/p>\n
Within a month, his father would be dead. But not before Franklin recruited him to visit their old home in Langhorne, Pa., where his father\u2019s alcoholism and violence had ruined a marriage and nearly destroyed his family.<\/p>\n