Ken: It felt like it happened kind of gradually. He was doing some acting, some modelling. Sometimes, atweekends, Grace and AJ would be off doing auditions or whatever, and Zak and I would go camping or fishing. I asked Zak what he thought about it all once. We were sitting by a campfire, and I remember the way the flames were reflected in his eyes when I looked at him. He was maybe ten or twelve. I asked whether he minded that we were so rarely all together, and he shrugged, and I thought I wasn’t going to get anything out of him, which wouldn’t have surprised me. He was a fairly quiet kid. Always lots going on in his head but he didn’t often give you access to any of it. But then he said something. He said it didn’t feel like we were a family any more. That it felt like the AJ show. I knew I had to talk to Grace about it, then.
Grace: Ken engineered this big family talk about where AJ’s career was going. He took us to our favourite Chinese restaurant and waited until we’d ordered. I guess so no one could storm off if the conversation didn’t go their way. He said he wanted to hear from everyone, starting with AJ.
Zak: Oh yeah, that dinner. AJ said he didn’t care much one way or the other about all the performing, and Mom looked horrified. It was like he’d gone off-script and she didn’t know what to do with him. It was kind of funny. The wait staff were bringing out sweet and sour noodles and chow mein and every time we thought they’d finished, they’d bring out another dish of rice or some prawn crackers. So AJ was saying he could give it all up tomorrow but he quite liked the money, and Mom was staring at him like he was an imposter, some kid she didn’t even know.
Grace: AJ had had a bad audition that weekend. He’d just heard he hadn’t got the part. It was for this candy bar commercial, and it was massive. I’d thought it was goingto be his big break. But they went for this goofy kid with teeth like a beaver. I have no idea why. AJ had great teeth. But who hasn’t felt like giving up now and again? It doesn’t mean you give up, does it?
Ken: I looked at Grace for a long time after AJ finished speaking but she would not meet my eye. Later, in bed, I said to her, as gently as I could, that I thought some of what she was doing with AJ was more about her than him. That she was trying to make sure he had the fame she missed out on with her dancing. She was lying very still, next to me, not speaking. For a second, I thought maybe she was asleep. But then she sat up, very suddenly, and said that I might not care about helping our son to be the best he could be, but she did. And she wouldn’t be talked or bullied out of it, or made to feel like she was doing the wrong thing. She picked up her pillow and left the room. She slept in the spare room. Started sleeping there a lot.
Zak: Do I think Mom and Dad would have stayed together then if it hadn’t been for the situation with AJ? I don’t know, man. I doubt it. It’s never just one thing that leads to divorce, is it? I feel like most of my childhood they were heading that way. Not screaming at each other, no violence. Just quietly living different lives. So I think it would have happened regardless, but I also think that AJ’s fame probably sped it up a bit.
Ken: I still thought it was worth rescuing, then. Our marriage. I asked my mom to watch the boys for a week and I booked us a holiday in Miami. Did it all as a surprise. I even talked to her boss and got her the week off work without her knowing. And then the day before we were due to leave, I told her to pack some swimsuitsand she asked me what I was talking about. I showed her the brochure, which I’d stuffed in a drawer. It was like she didn’t understand at first. But then she did. She started asking why I’d done it and saying she couldn’t go tomorrow because AJ had an audition and he couldn’t miss it. I said I thought he could, just this once. I had honestly never considered a scenario where she refused to come with me.
My mom arrived and there was this heavy silence in the house, and I opened the door and said something like, ‘Shit, I forgot to cancel you,’ and then she was furious because that’s no kind of welcome when you’ve driven three hours to your son’s place to take care of your grandsons for a week. I was making Mom a coffee when Grace came into the kitchen and said she wasn’t going and that was final. She looked at Mom and said, ‘We don’t need you here, it’s all been a misunderstanding.’ They’d never got on, Mom and Grace. Mom thought Grace believed she was better than her, and to be fair, Grace probably did think that. And Grace thought Mom was a busybody. She was, a bit, but she was still my mom, you know?
So there I was, with these two tickets to Miami and a half-packed suitcase. I went upstairs and started taking things out of it. Shorts and T-shirts and a book and my toothbrush. All of it. Zak came into the room then and asked what I was doing. And when I told him, he asked whether we could go. Me and him. I stopped unpacking.
Zak: I know a week in Miami with me isn’t what Dad had been planning, but I thought it was probably better than wasting the money altogether. And we had a good time. Days on the beach, nights in the hotel restaurant, me with a Coke, Dad with a beer. It was pretty sweet.
Ken: That was the beginning of the end, if there even is such a thing. I realised on that holiday that there was probably no going back. I remember lying next to Zak in the hotel bed, watching his chest rise and fall in the darkness. I remember crying, and trying to do it silently so he wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t know what I was going home to, but I didn’t think it was a family.
Zak: AJ came to me not long after that Miami trip and said he didn’t want to do any of it any more. That he wanted to have a normal life. I think he was twelve. He liked playing video games. It was pretty much the only thing we did together. We played a lot ofPac-Man. Sometimes he called me Zak-man. I said we had to speak to Mom and Dad, but he was pretty reluctant. I said I’d do it with him, that no one would get mad. So I went with him, and we told them, but it was like Mom didn’t hear it. He mentioned something about liking the singing the most and she just took that and ran with it, saying she’d tell the agents to focus on the singing from then on.
Grace: It was AJ’s choice to narrow our focus to just the singing. We started travelling a lot, doing whatever shows we could. He had a great voice, and so much charisma. I realised he was right. He was good at the acting, but it wasn’t his thing. He came alive when he sang.
Zak: When AJ was at home, I used to ask him if he was okay, if he wanted to carry on with it all, and he said he did. And to be honest, every time I saw him performing, he was magic. Just… it’s hard to find the words. He was really special. I knew he was going to make it big, because how could people not recognise that in him? How could they not see?
Ken: Grace started going all over with him. Some weeks I didn’t even know what state they were in. She hired a tutor because he was missing so much school, and we could barely afford it. I was getting ready to tell her it had to stop, that it was enough, when he got offeredThe Friday Show.
Grace: He was thirteen when he landedThe Friday Show. It was huge. Everyone watched it. Kids singing and dancing and cute comedy sketches, and it aired on Friday afternoons when school was out and kids had that feeling of freedom. There was no way we were ever going to turn it down.
Zak: I had watched that show when I was younger. Everyone did. I couldn’t believe it. I remember giving AJ a hug and telling him I was proud of him. We went out for this fancy dinner, and even Dad seemed pleased. And then, when we were waiting for our dessert, Dad asked Mom how they’d manage the travel, how often they’d have to go back and forth, and I thought,Oh yeah, of course that show is filmed in LA. And Mom said, cool as anything, that we’d have to move there. Dad just sat there with his mouth hanging open, and when he finally spoke, his voice was like ice and I knew from experience that that was much more dangerous than when he shouted. He said she couldn’t just uproot the whole family like that, on a whim, without even discussing it with him. And she said it wasn’t a whim, it was the fuckingFriday Show.Everyone turned to look at us. We weren’t used to that back then. AJ got up and walked out, and the rest of us followed, Dad throwing down some money and shouting for our dessert order to be cancelled.
That night, I lay in bed listening to them arguing. I wondered whether AJ was listening too. I’m sure he was. For my part, I didn’t want to move. I was fifteen and I had a good group of friends and I liked my high school, and there was a girl I’d had my eye on for months and I was planning to make my move any day. But I knew that none of that mattered to Mom.
Grace: Ken just wouldn’t even entertain the idea of moving. He was a builder, and he could have worked anywhere, but he said he couldn’t move further away from his mom, who was getting older. It was bullshit. It was just an excuse. He’d always been cautious, afraid to try things. One night, when we were in the kitchen making tacos, I told him me and the boys were going, whether or not he came with us, and he turned around from where he was standing at the fridge, left the door wide open and walked right over to me. Didn’t stop until our faces were inches apart. I don’t think I was breathing. I thought he was going to hit me for a second. But he wasn’t that type of guy. He said, very calmly, that I couldn’t take his boys away from him. And I said, ‘Watch me.’ I’m not proud of that, but I wasn’t going to ruin my son’s career before it had even properly got started because Ken was too chickenshit to make a change.
Zak: Mom presented it to me as a fait accompli. We were going, he was staying. I said I would stay with Dad, but then AJ came to my room and said he didn’t want to live in a different state to me, and he looked like he was going to cry, and I asked him whether this was what he wanted, and he just told me how much they were offering to pay him, which was kind of a mind-blowing amount. I felt like heneeded me, like it would be too hard on him if it was just him and Mom, day in and day out. But I felt like maybe Dad needed me too, though he never asked me to stay.
Ken: I wanted to ask Zak to stay, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. One person leaving a family is one thing but having it torn down the middle, separating brothers, that’s something else. I talked to a solicitor, asked about my chances of winning custody if I took her to court, and I was told they’d more than likely give the kids to the mother. That that’s the way it pretty much always went. And I thought it was what AJ wanted, so I knew that I’d be fighting against him as well as Grace. And I just… didn’t. I let it go. Let them go. Worst mistake of my life.
Zak: It all happened pretty fast. Mom found somewhere for the three of us to live and we packed up and went. AJ started filming a few days after we got there. Meanwhile, I didn’t have a school to go to for a month or so. That certainly reinforced Mom’s priorities for me. I used to go with AJ and hang out on set, and I saw this totally different life. There were people there to do the kids’ makeup and hair and style them and there was a fridge full of free soda and fruit and candy to help yourself to. It’s funny the things you remember, the things that impress you when you’re young. That soda fridge really stuck with me.
And it felt like AJ became famous overnight. He used to get recognised when we were out for dinner or at the grocery store. It’s such a crazy place, LA, and everyone’s either writing a screenplay or starring in one, or waiting tables while they wait for their break. AJ had this money – Mom made him put most of it into savings, but he had more cash available than either of us had had before – andlife was sweet. I missed Dad. Of course I did. But I was fifteen and my head was easily turned. In LA, it felt like the sun was always shining and everything came easy.
Grace: I don’t regret that move for one second. AJ was going places and who was I to hold him back? He fitted right in with the cast, and he was making good money and I was making sure he put a lot of it away for the future. At first, Ken and I pretended the marriage wasn’t over, that this was a trial and we’d see how it went. But I think we both knew we were heading for divorce. He used to visit every couple of months to see the boys, and on one of those trips, about a year after the move, he brought it up. Said he thought it was time to face facts.
Ken: Yes, I was the one who said we should get divorced. There’s only so long you can sit on your own eating microwave dinners with your wife and two sons in another state before you make it official. There was no one else. It was just a sad inevitability. After that I stopped visiting so often and I’d arrange for the boys to fly to me, but Grace didn’t like it. There was always some excuse about AJ needing to rehearse or film. Sometimes Zak came alone, and we’d hang out and fish and it would be like the old days, and when he left, the house would feel so unbearably empty.
Zak: I know Dad missed us. I used to go to see him as often as I could, but it wasn’t long before it just felt like our life was in LA, and all those years in Georgia had just been some kind of warm-up. I didn’t fit there any more. I made some good friends, once I finally got to go to school. For a long time, I kept quiet about my brother being onThe Friday Show, but it didn’t last. Once word was out,girls would come up and ask me about him, try to score an invitation to the house.
There was this one girl, Melissa, who sat in front of me in history and who I obsessed over for months. I used to stare at the back of her head, at her long, blonde hair, and will her to turn around. And then one day she did, and I couldn’t believe it, so I didn’t hear what she said at first, and I zoned back in just as she was talking about hanging out, coming over, and I was so fucking happy. But when she came, all she wanted to talk about was AJ. He wasn’t home, and I was hoping I could get her to forget about him. But then I heard the door open and she jumped up and then he was in the room and she was blushing and twirling her hair around her finger. And it was hard, man. He was my kid brother. He was, what, thirteen? And we didn’t look so different. It was just that shine that fame gives you, I guess. I had to get used to it.
Grace: I don’t think AJ’s fame was hard on Zak in particular, no. He was proud of his brother, happy for him. And he got to enjoy some of the perks, too. We were invited to premieres and parties – there was always someone’s pool to swim in or someone’s new role to celebrate. They were good days. We didn’t know then that he’d get so famous it would be hard to go anywhere. Back then he had the money and the start of the fame, but it hadn’t gotten out of hand.
After about a year on the show, one of the producers took me to one side when I was picking AJ up and asked if I’d like to go for dinner with him. I wasn’t expecting it – there hadn’t been anyone since Ken. But he was a good-looking guy and I was ready to have a bit of a life of my own, so I said yes. Over dinner, he told me that a recordcompany had been sniffing around, that they were looking for a new teenage singer to turn into a pop sensation. I remember he used that exact phrase. He said he thought AJ was the perfect choice, but that they were looking at a kid called Luke too. He made it clear that he had a certain amount of influence over the decision. When we were driving home, he took me to this clearing where you could see the Hollywood sign, and he kissed me, his hands sliding under my dress, coffee on his breath. Let’s just say that one thing led to another.
And a week or so later, we met with the record company boss. He said he thought AJ was exactly what he’d been looking for.
