You're lucky, Norma, you never met your father. The information I gathered was that he wasn't a bad father. He was a loving father. But when he wasn't working, he was very playful and took care of them, supported them, worried about them, included them in. It was that dynamic that had attracted him to the role.
Oates makes it much more.
She must have discovered something. To find out how schizophrenics behave, Dempsey visited with and observed a couple of people under treatment. Scheduling conflicts prevented him from returning as Aaron at Rick and Lily's wedding, which concluded the show's second season.