The Skeleton Tree

Waiting for their rescue in the present, Frank continues to read the book as Chris marvels at how much Frank is like their father.

In a flashback, Chris reacts to Frank’s bombshell revelation. Chris asks why Frank never told him, but Frank says he hated Chris because his father’s second family is what took him away. Frank storms off, and Chris pursues him, screaming questions. Frank claims that he knew about Chris all along and that his father never went on business trips but was spending time with him. He says Chris’s father hated him.

Chris recalls his father telling him, right before he died, that things would be different. Frank tells Chris about the morning their father died. He said he had to go home, which stung Frank because he thought his father was home. He took his coffee and left. Later, Chris found the coffee cup his father left in the garage a few minutes before a garbage truck T-boned his car and he died. Neither of them understands why their father lived two lives, why he told Frank’s family about the other one, or why he went away that morning with change on his mind: “Jack thought Dad might have killed himself,” Frank tells Chris (213).