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

“You know what?” I said, nodding my head as if in agreement. “Why don’t you take your tombstone, and your grave, and your coffin, and your vault, and your hearing aids, and your suit for Sunday mass, and your Ironman, and your Xbox and all your fucking Xbox games, and all those fucking books I bought you that you never read, and your clothes, and your toothbrush—why don’t you take all of that stuff and just shove the whole lot of it straight up your goddamned ass? Huh? How about that, Beloved Son? Beloved, my ass! If you loved me, you wouldn’t have left me! Are you listening to me now? And why don’t you take your halos and your sunbeams, and your heavenly choirs, and your ‘new, perfect body,’ and your ‘spotless, sinless dress,’ washed in the blood of the fucking Lamb—why don’t you…why…how could you do this? Oh Jesus, God, how could you do this to me? Was I really so bad? You were my little boy. My precious little boy! Why did you leave me like this?”


Chapter 49