A few days pass, Danny keeping busy with Linda's "honey-do" list—which is about ten times longer than it was the last time he saw it.
Friday night, the boys are at a friend's house for a sleepover, and Linda is out with her girlfriends. He's staring blankly at the TV, on his second (or is it third?) beer, which isn't doing anything for his mood. In fact, it's just making him think about Fallujah, and making him more pissed off about Michael Oates' murder.
The doorbell rings, and he stands up, wonders briefly if he should get his weapon from the safe in the closet, then remembers he doesn't have it, because he was suspended.
He opens the door. "Dad, what are you doing here?"
"We need to talk."
He sighs. "Look, I know I screwed up, but Cassidy started it by resisting arrest."
"That's not why I'm here."
He lets his father inside, locks the door.
"Did you hear me the other day, about going to find Linda and the kids instead of getting lost in beer and TV?"
He shrugs. "Yeah. Guess I forgot. If that's all you came here for…"
His father sits down on the couch, opens one of his bottles of beer, takes a slug. "It's not."
"Why are you here? And why are you drinking my beer?"
"I was thirsty."
"You're gonna give me a lecture, and you need the liquid courage." He sits down in the armchair, wonders what he did now.
His father drains the bottle. "Linda came to see me the other day. It appears I owe you an apology."
Now he's really confused. "For what?"
"Raising you and your siblings with the belief that therapy is a sign of weakness."
"O come on, Dad. Now you decide to change your tune?"
"Pops raised me with the same rule: 'Reagans don't take drugs, and we don't go to therapy.' So when I got back from Vietnam, joined the NYPD, and found some cop-turned-shrink was starting a 'psychological services' in the department, I ignored it. Learned real quick how to talk through a mandatory meeting after a shooting. It was just…what you did. You didn't go to shrinks, and you didn't talk about your feelings."
"So why the hell do you think I would believe you when you said 'There's no shame talking about what went on in Iraq'?"
"Because this is now, not then; it's you, not me; and what happened in Fallujah…is worse than what I saw in Vietnam." His dad adds, in a whisper, "Pops' best friend killed himself after going to a shrink; I know a guy who tried to kill himself thanks to a crappy therapist."
He bolts from his chair. "How the hell do you know what happened in Fallujah? You weren't f-g there! You're stronger than me, is that it? Get out!"
"Danny, that's not…"
"Get the hell out."
He's angry enough to want to hit his father, so he's relieved when the older Reagan walks out the door without another word.
He locks the door, throws an empty beer bottle across the room, and sinks to the floor.