Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Family Obligations
    Family Obligations
    Family Obligations
    Ebook58 pages55 minutes

    Family Obligations

    By Vivien Dean and Rick R. Reed

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Tate D’Angelo always thought he knew who his father was: beloved doctor, devoted husband and father ... Everyone at the funeral shared the same glowing stories of a kind soul. So when his father’s old college buddy, Randy, approaches him after the service, Tate expects to hear echoes of the same.

    Instead, he gets a lifetime’s worth of letters that tell a different tale and cause him to view his father -- and his family -- in a whole new light.

    The truth, about a secret romance kept buried for decades, astonishes him. Overwhelmed by grief and confusion, Tate’s unsure if he can bear learning how the lives of two men entwined over the years, but he reads on anyway, discovering more to value, more to respect, and most importantly, more to love about the man who raised him.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJMS Books LLC
    Release dateApr 18, 2020
    ISBN9781646563388
    Family Obligations
    Author

    Vivien Dean

    A firm believer that love doesn’t care about gender, four-time EPIC eBook Award winner Vivien Dean has been writing since 2006 in a wide variety of genres. She currently resides in California’s Bay Area with her British husband and two teenagers. For more information, visit viviendean.com.

    Read more from Vivien Dean

    Related authors

    Related to Family Obligations

    Related ebooks

    Gay Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      All My Tomorrows

      May 10, 2022

      It was Misha’s first day minding the shop, and already she’d broken the fifth rule. Always lock the door immediately. When you had the most valuable merchandise in the universe, you had to take the utmost precautions. She hadn’t meant to disobey. It

      13 min read

    • Article

      Remains

      Sep 1, 2017

      THIS IS what you think your mother’s remains will look like. The ash will be black, like all that soot in the fireplace. It will be heavy, like wet sand. There will not be too much of it. It will fit in a small urn with intricate designs on the borde

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Ones We Sent Away

      Aug 7, 2023

      The Ones We Sent Away
      47 min read

    • Article

      Life After Death

      May 27, 2022

      Life After Death
      14 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Summer We Lost Her

      Apr 4, 2019

      The Summer We Lost Her
      8 min read

    • Article

      Whom He May Devour: Saving her planet would ban her from paradise.

      Jan 7, 2016

      Lydia watched Ahad play the guitar. He leaned against a boulder, eyes shut, his face positioned to catch the last warm rays of the setting sun. His long, slender fingers caressed the strings, producing a slow, haunting melody. The music almost made h

      17 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Loading Brush

      Sep 1, 2017

      The Art of Loading Brush
      27 min read

    • Article

      Famous People

      Mar 1, 2022

      Famous People
      15 min read

    • Article

      For the Union Dead

      Apr 6, 2020

      For the Union Dead
      17 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2024

      I’ve always been an easy crier (let it come, not ashamed, never held it back in joy or grief, and wherever … subway, teaching, grocery store, (oh the desolate grocery store during the height of Covid) but now, the welling up: that’s daily now. —Lia P

      5 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Say

      Oct 7, 2022

      I magine a sticky, early August morning, around three o’clock. It is dark, the moon blocked by clouds, no streetlights, a siren in the distance, medics running to a heart attack. Imagine a man out on a bike or walking a sick dog, or maybe a woman who

      10 min read

    • Article

      Begin Again

      Jun 14, 2022

      My grandfather came to live with me. There was nowhere else for him to go. What had happened to all his children? Death, decay, exile—I hardly know. My own parents died of pain. But I must not be too gloomy, at the beginning, or you will leave me, an

      6 min read

    • Article

      No Cause For Complacency

      Mar 10, 2023

      No Cause For Complacency
      3 min read

    • Article

      Riccardo

      Jun 14, 2022

      My understanding of my family’s religion was that we didn’t have to go to church if we didn’t want to and that our belief in God was tenuous at best. I grasped the seventh principle, “the interconnected web of all existence,” and I understood the hum

      14 min read

    • Article

      Happy Endings

      Sep 1, 2023

      Happy Endings
      5 min read

    • Article

      Suspicious Minds

      Apr 7, 2022

      Suspicious Minds
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lies I Tell My Father

      Feb 10, 2024

      “How’s your job at the newspaper?” my father asks me. He is sitting on a couch, a plush throw blanket spread across his legs. “The newspaper’s fine,” I lie. I lie because it is simple. I lie because it is quick. I lie because it is easier than trying

      10 min read

    • Article

      ‘‘I Love You, Sissy’’

      Aug 27, 2019

      ‘‘I Love You, Sissy’’
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Sunrise Manor Routine

      Jun 1, 2019

      The Sunrise Manor Routine
      10 min read

    • Article

      James Gray

      Nov 4, 2022

      James Gray
      3 min read

    • Article

      Telling The Ancestral Tales

      Feb 12, 2021

      Telling The Ancestral Tales
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dads Behaving Badly

      Jun 16, 2017

      Dads Behaving Badly
      5 min read

    • Article

      Green Fingers

      Jul 21, 2020

      Green Fingers
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Family Obligations

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Family Obligations - Vivien Dean

      Family Obligations

      By Vivien Dean and Rick R. Reed

      Published by JMS Books LLC

      Visit jms-books.com for more information.

      Copyright 2020 Vivien Dean and Rick R. Reed

      ISBN 9781646563388

      Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

      Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

      All rights reserved.

      WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

      No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

      This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Published in the United States of America.

      * * * *

      For Nicholas Tate Reed.

      * * * *

      Family Obligations

      By Vivien Dean and Rick R. Reed

      Tate D’Angelo cast a look back at the casket, thinking of all the things that go through a son’s mind when his father dies. A cavalcade of memories sprang forth—events that had seen him and his father through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and, finally, his adulthood. Those memories, like everyone’s, were filled with good times and bad, with holidays and special days, losses and celebrations, landmarks, and the shifting changes brought about by the passage of time.

      Tate supposed losing his father at age sixty-two from pancreatic cancer was yet another of those changes. Tate was half his father’s age, with a family of his own now, yet he felt suddenly alone in the world. He knew that in spite of the memories he carried in his heart, he would never see his dad again, never pick up the phone to call him or feel his warm embrace when they reunited. There was a hole where his father had been, and Tate didn’t know if he would ever be able to fill it.

      On this hot Miami night, at Estrella Funeral Home in Coral Gables, the viewing hours had been well-attended, crowded even. His dad would have been humbled by all of the people who had come out to pay their respects. Tate wished only that his father could have seen the throngs coming in the past couple of hours and heard the kind words they had said about him and his medical practice. Why did it always have to be at the passing of a life when people expressed their gratitude and affection so well? Why were they so hesitant when they were alive? Tate promised himself he’d hug his own family extra close tonight.

      His dad had been a caring guy, that much was for sure.

      Now almost everyone had left save for his mother, who sat, looking a bit shell-shocked, next to the open casket where his father lay. He really did look like he was asleep—still handsome with his Sicilian coloring and hair, black and wavy with just a touch of gray.

      Tate caught his mother’s eye. She looked so tired, and the slope of her shoulders and the shadows beneath her dull and listless eyes confirmed it. He knew her world had crumbled beneath her, and he was certain she, like him, was wondering how it would all come back together, if it ever could. Tate knew exactly how she felt—it had been hard enough grieving, but the added necessity of being on for all the visitors had sucked every bit of energy from Tate and, he was sure, his mom. He simply needed, as introverts tend to do, a moment alone to recharge. He raised one finger and mouthed the words, Be right back, to his mother, who nodded weakly and gave him a small wave.

      When he crept out through the whisper-quiet plate glass front doors, a wall of heat and humidity hit him like something palpable. The air was infused with moisture, and only the smallest of breezes stirred the palms on the funeral home’s front lawn. Miami had been Tate’s home most of his life, so, in spite of the cloying tropical heat,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1