After she passed, my dad shut down and he functioned, but he didn't really seem to feel anything, At first, I was scared, but after five years, I just figure it... It's who he is. And then one day he comes home and he's laughing and telling stories. It was like someone had flipped the on switch, his new partner, your mom. Three years is a long time. You have to consider love as a possibility, even if you don't want to. My dad loves your mom. He keeps a picture of her on his bedside table and he wouldn't do that unless he loved her. - Gabe, episode S1-08. Half Baked.

I was nine years old when my dad went away. Mom was dead. Dead meant never coming back. Dad hadn't spoken the entire weekend of funeral arrangements. My father was an emotive fire and when he loved, he loved hard. I heard him cry himself to sleep every night, cry himself through meals until he stopped sleeping and eating altogether. He hadn't stopped crying until he placed soft soil over mom's grave- then he stopped speaking to me.

Until the first sunny day after mum passed. "Dad... we have each other, right?"

Dad turned from me and stared out the window with a hardened expression, as if he'd been staring into a rainy, stormy view. "I'm not sure anymore, Gabe."

I was a terrified child, clinging to the only parent I had left. I tried again that evening. "Dad, the nice lady from church brought over some meals. I think you should eat something. You are worrying me."

My father brushed over my worry easily, he scoffed cynically. "Church was your mother's thing. "

I didn't understand his tone. It was angry and rude.

"I'm angry at the man upstairs, Gabe."

"Dad" I almost cried. "They just want to help. They are keeping us in their prayers."

Tears stammered in my father's eyes as he shook his head. "Prayers? Why weren't my prayers answered to cure my wife? Huh? It is a little late for prayers now! Where were YOU then God!?" Both fists shook angrily at the sky then crashed down onto our kitchen table, collapsing it. I yelled out in anxiety and ran away from my crazy dad.

Years went by... as did father's episodes. Almost everything in our place was destroyed during one of my father's pity parties. I could sense deep shame in his stare when he confronted the chaos he caused.

I was afraid of dad's new animosity. . . But I was also afraid of losing his attention. One night as he walked through our front door I popped in a feverishly violent and perverse video game. He was so upset these days I figured this would turn his temper into tough love. Strict parenting, a stern talking to, even a spanking. It would become an outlet for his rage and by association make him active in my life.

Dad was unaffected by the savage sound effects and walked right on passed. It hadn't surprised me anymore. Kyle the Great was a shell of a former man. I accepted it. He was a robot that lost function. No soul, no laughter. Just a detached cynic going through the motions of his life and dreaded day job.

I followed my father into the kitchen where he was cracking open a can of beer. "I got fired today, son"

My dad seemed rather calm for a single father with one income. I was no longer a young boy, but on the cusp of teen-hood. I could go out and land a paper route. "What happened, dad?"

My dad actually, ALMOST cracked a smile. At the very least he was enjoying himself. "I punched a customer in the nose today."

Now I hadn't felt like blowing my after school days on a paper route. Not if he was going to be this irresponsible to piss on our future. "The FUCKS wrong with you? Life ain't some game, dad. I thought after losing mom that would make a bit more sense to you. Your temper is out of control and you couldn't give less a fuck!"

I was never sure of my father's expression that day. I stormed out of the house and hopped on a bicycle and biked and biked away. I fantasized that my dad took to heart my words, but he was so callous and emotionless these days I was sure it was just a fantasy, until the next day when he arrived to pick me up from school. "Dad?"

He was dressed in a blue police man's uniform. He glanced down toward me and nodded. He looked as if he'd been up all night thinking and was being uncharacteristically considerate.

"Gabe, you were right. I need to stop taking my anger out on you and our house and furniture. Instead I can take my anger out on bad guys. There are just too many good women out there losing their lives. They could have been someone's mother, someone's... wife. Women with full lives ahead cut short by killers. I'M going to be the one to put these men behind bars."

Now I didn't think his motivations for being an officer were the best. It had been so long since he was gung-ho about anything that never would I dare deter him.