Years have gone by since the death of Noah his special needs son, and Wiley Cantrell realizes it’s time to move on. He and his husband Jackson try to adopt little Tony Gorzola, a deaf boy with HIV who is emotionally traumatized.<br><br>Difficulties quickly set in. Tony is a sweet boy but very damaged by abuse and neglect. And Tony’s mother, in prison, is unwilling to relinquish her parental rights. No sooner do they get the go ahead to foster Tony when another child they had considered becomes available -- the daughter Jackson always wanted.<br><br>With two children on their hands, life is complicated -- wonderfully so. But just as things begin to settle down, Tony, his immune system compromised, falls ill with pneumonia ... and Wiley and Jackson find their little family faced with crisis once again.

Go Tell It on the Mountains

We don’t keep alcohol in the apartment. Don’t even keep aspirin in the apartment for fear Jackson Ledbetter would grind it and snort the powder up his goddamn nose.


I was partial to American Honey, so I picked out a fifth, thought better of it, grabbed a big bottle instead.


As I drove to New Albany, where Mama lived, I drank straight from the bottle.


I bypassed the road to Mama’s house and circled through the downtown area, eventually winding up at the cemetery on the edge of town where Catholics had been buried since the 1800s. A meandering drive went through the cemetery, and the tombstones glared in my headlights. I saluted the “Closed from 6PM to 6AM” sign with my bottle as I drove to the newer section and pulled to a stop.


Chapter 48