Speaker 1: The ground out past the willow pulsed. I remember how
the moss peeled back to show what looked to be
a gray, pink veiny pit, which was slick like raw flesh.
I was just a boy, maybe seven, chasing a rabbit
through the wet grass. It wasn't mine, or at least
I don't remember having one. The rabbit ran ahead, and
before I could call it back, it slipped on the
moss and tumbled forward. There was a wet, tearing sound,
and it disappeared down into the pulsing pit. I remember
the way the moss fell back over the hole like
closing lips, and I ran back to the house screaming.
For years, i'd wake up in the middle of the night,
sweating through my sheets, that same nightmare, keeping me from
a good night's sleep. When I called Ruth, I was
sitting in the server room watching the reflection of the
fluorescent lights pulls in my coffee. I let the phone
buzz out on the desk. She was my nearest neighbor
growing up. She lived half a mile down the track
and always brought casseroles over when Mom passed. I remember
that she kept an eyeing me when Dad got too rough.
I'd been ignoring calls from home for years. I'd blocked
my dad after I'd answered to him yelling about leaving
him with a broken tractor and no one to fix it.
I'd been dodging her calls lately, too. Credit card bills
were doubling before I could pay them back. My rent
kept jumping each year, and I didn't have it in
me to lie and say I was fine. I didn't
want to hear the worry in her voice. I never
missed the farm each day before school. Dad used to
wake me up before dawn to hauld feed sacks almost
bigger than me. He called me useless and slapped me
hard across the back of my head when I dropped
one or spilled grain across the barn floor. I hated
smelling like a farm. At school, the other kids would
wrinkle their noses and call me pig boy. They'd shoved
me in the halls, too, and when I told Dad,
he said maybe if I wasn't so soft like Mum,
they wouldn't. I remember once I asked him why he
never came to my school assemblies, and he just looked
at me and said what for, before walking away. Another time,
when I was about twelve, I spilled a bucket of
pig slop on the feed room floor, and he dragged
me outside of the collar, slammed me up against the
grain silas so hard I saw stars, and left me
there in the frost till Ruth spotted me during one
of the walks. I spent years saving at what little
I could from doing odd jobs around the village. I'd
help old mister Keane split wood and mock out Ruth's
chicken sheds for a fiver here and there, but I
never managed to save up enough money. As soon as
I was old enough, I took out a credit card,
packed my clothes in a bin bag, and caught the
first coach to the city. I caught myself a job
stocking shelves at a supermarket. I never touched the computer
back home, but at the supermarket they put me in
their tills for a while, and I picked up how
to fix the barcode scanner when it jammed, or reset
the till when they crashed. One of the supervisors noticed
I was quick with it and showed me how to
do basic trouble shooting on the back office computer. I
realized I was good at it for the first time,
I felt like maybe I wasn't useless after all, like
maybe Dad was wrong about me. Ruth left a voicemail.
Her voice was soft but tight, like she'd been crying.
She said, my dad was sick, worse than before, and
he couldn't keep up with the live stock or the
fencing repairs. She didn't ask me to come home, but
she said he needed help and there wasn't anyone who
liked him enough to do it. I sat there listening
to it play out, feeling that old fear crawl up
in my chest. I was a grown man now, twice
as strong as i'd been back then, but part of
me still felt small just hearing his name. I remembered
one morning when I was eight or nine, crying in
the kitchen because Dad had called me useless again. Mom
crouched down in front of me, her hands still smelling
of dish soap, and she said, your dad's a hard worker, Love,
it's tiring him out. Sometimes we help people even when
they don't deserve it. That's what makes you better than them.
It didn't make sense to me when I was younger,
but even though I understood it in my adulthood. It
didn't mean I believed it. Mom's death left a gap
in the house I was never allowed to speak about.
The last memory I have of her was that morning
her hair was tied back with a red ribbon and
she handed me toast. As I pulled my boots on
for school, she kissed the top of my head and
told me to listen to the teachers and come straight home.
When I got back, Dad said she fell from the hayloft,
all checking for owl nests and broken neck on the
old feed bin. He didn't wait for me and buried
her himself on the opposite side of the land from
the barns, near the poplar grove. He put up a
small wooden cross with the name burned into it. I
used to guard there after school, sit with my back
against the tree trunk and tell her about my day.
Thinking about going back made my stomach twist. The resentment
was there, thick as ever, thinking of all those beatings.
How he only ever got meaner after Mom died. But
Guild pressed into if I didn't go, who else would
help him? Ruth was right, There wasn't anyone else who
he hadn't burned bridges with I took my old hatchback.
I bought a Facebook marketplace for cheap and packed it
with my belongings and a flask of instant coffee for
the drive. As I got closer to home, the road narrowed,
hedgerows overgrown and clawing at the paintwork. The village sign
was rusted through at the bottom, leaning sideways into thistle clumps.
My pass shuttered shop fronts with blinds yellowed from the
inside out. The grain silo streaked red brown with rust.
The old farmhouse at the junction boarded up with a
warped ply that flapped in the wind, and it all
felt smaller than I remembered. The drive had been long,
My back was sore from the sagging seat, and I
spent half the time thinking about how I'd pay off
the credit cards now I didn't have an income. I
kept wondering what the place would look like now I
was grown, if the barns would seem small too. Part
of me hoped Dad kept mums or boxes in the attic,
even just a box or a Sunday clothes, something left
that still smelled like a soap and wood smoke. My
chest felt tight thinking about stepping back into that kitchen
and seeing him there. When I pulled up, Dad was
out by the porch, sitting on the old paint flake
chair with his flask tucked tight in both hands. He
frowned when he saw me step out of the hatchback
lined deep around his mouth. What are you doing here,
he shouted, squinting at me like he wasn't sure I
was real. His voice was thinner than I remembered, rough
like gravel. He set the flask down on the poor trail,
his hand shaking a little as he did. I told
him Ruth called me, and he snorted, spat into the dirt,
said he didn't need any charity from city boys with
soft hands. His eyes flickered over me, my jeans, my trainers,
the creases, and my shirt from the drive, and he
curled his lip like it all offended him. I couldn't
help noticing how his shoulders had shrunk into his frame,
how gray his skin looked under the old cap. There
were sun spots across his cheeks and the ridge of
his nose, and a smear of dried blood under one nostril,
like he'd been wiping at it. I thought about how
this was the man he used to lift me one
handed off the ground when he was angry. Now he
looked like a strong wind could knock sideways. He wiped
his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes flicking
away from mine. Well, he muttered, voice quieter, don't just
stand there gaping. Your bags won't carry themselves in. He
pushed himself up to a stand, hobbled down the porch steps,
and reached for the boot to grab one of my
Duffel bags. His fingers trembled in the strap and he
nearly lost balance, catching himself against the car with a grunt.
For a moment, I felt sorry for him, seeing how
old and thin he gone. With the memory of him
dragging me across the yard by the collar flared up sharp,
burning the pity right out of me. I cleared my throat.
You're right there, I asked, trying to keep my voice flat.
He grunted and didn't look at me, still bracing himself
against the door. Don't fuss, grab your crap and get
inside before the flies do the way His voice shook
under the words made something twist low in my gut,
but I didn't say anything else. As I reached for
the rest of my bags. In the days that followed,
mornings came slow, the cold seeping through the thin windows.
Each day blended into the next, and it was over
the course of a week that these small changes built
between us. The first morning I caught him in the kitchen,
hunched over his mug, fighting with his shirt buttons, knuckles
swollen and spotted with age. I reached over without saying
anything and fastened the last button for him. He grunted
like it annoyed him, but he didn't pull away. He
muttered city boys got soft hands, but clever fingers, and
it almost sounded like affection. By the fourth and fifth day,
we spent mornings along the rye Field fence. He showed
me how to wage the crowbar under the rotted post
without splitting it, his wrinkled hands guiding mine, and for
a moment I felt like a kid again, looking up
to him before everything went bad, I found myself wondering
why he had been so cool back then. Was it
the stress of losing mom, the endless debt and failing crops,
or was that just who he was? And now age
made him softer. When the tract ringed him backfired, he
flinched so hard he dropped the spanner, and then he
barked out a warm laugh. It was the first time
I'd heard that sound from him since I was very young.
I laughed too, and for a second I saw him
the way I'd wanted to as a boy, just my dad,
not the man who bruised my ribs when I spilled
pig feed. That evening, as the day settled in, he
walked down the line of the new posts. I tamped in,
testing each one with his boot. Good job, he said, quiet,
almost embarrassed. Didn't think you'd get them line proper. His
words settled into my chest, heavy and warm, something close
to pride curling low in my gut. As the sun
bled down past the barn roof, he stared out towards
the hollow, squinting at the shadows pooling at its edge.
You're stronger than I thought. His voice cracked a little.
The next week rolled on the same, each day aching
more than the last. I learned how to split fence
rails without wasting half the splinters, had to bull a
stubborn car from a cramped pen without and kicked. My
hands blistered in the first two days, and by day
three the skin peeled off in strips. Every morning I
woke with my back stiff and my arms throbbing, but
I kept going, feeling something heavy and guilty settle in
my chest. I thought about how Dad must have been
doing all this alone for years after I left, and
it made my stomach groan with shame. The work was
harder than I ever imagined, and each time I caught
him watching me, his eyes clouded but proud, it made
me want to do more. I started picking up extra
chores without him asking, fixing a jammed water pump and
oiling the barn hinges before they squealed themselves off the nails.
Each chaw made my back ache and my palms raw,
but also gave me a sense of purpose I hadn't
felt in years. I found myself wanting to prove to
him I wasn't useless. Some mornings, as we ate breakfast
in silence, I'd catch him glancing at me from under
his brow, and I thought maybe he was starting to
see me as more than a boy who ran away.
But that old nightmare started coming back too. I got
used to sleeping right through the night when I moved away.
Maybe it was being back in my old room, and
the smell of haydust and old varnish seeping from the
floorboards that let it crawl back in. Now every couple
of nights i'd wake up gasping, heart hammering, and the
sheets clammy with sweat. In the dream, I was small again,
feet sinking into wet grass, watching the ground past the
willow ripple and pulse like a throat. The mass peeled
back to show that graping flesh underneath, faint and slick,
twitching with a life of its own. I'd see the
rabbits skit a forward here, its yelps before it slipped
and fell in, followed by their wet, tearing sound that
still makes my stomach clench just thinking of it. I
couldn't help but wonder why the dream came back. As
time passed, I noticed that every other day my dad
would hobble out to the pens and tie a rope
around a goat's neck, and he'd lead it, quiet and
bleating past the rye field toward the marshland. He'd come
back alone, wiping his hands on his jeans, his face pale,
her eyes distant. The first time I asked where he went,
he snapped at me sharp, not your business. But then
he sighed and his shoulders slumped. It's just old farm work.
You wouldn't understand, he said, his voice tired, almost kind.
Let your old man and take care of the land.
There was something in his eyes that warned me off.
I thought maybe he was culling them or selling to
some neighbor. I didn't know, but the way he shut
down any question made me not want to know. It
was easier not to know. I couldn't shake the feeling
that maybe my nightmare wasn't just a nightmare at all.
Maybe it was something I saw once and my mind
buried it because thinking about it too long made me
feel sick. The next time he went to fetch a goat,
I saw how his hands shook. It was so bad
the rope nearly slipped through his grip. His face was gray,
lips dry and cracked, and sweat clung to the wisps
of hair at his temple. I put down the spanner
I was using to fix the tractor panel and said, here,
let me take it out for you today. He pause,
shoulders trembling as he caught his breath, and his eyes
flicked up at me. Dull and wet, like he was
fighting something inside. No, he said, voice low but shaking.
You go fix that south gate hinge instead, leave this
to me. He tried to stand up straighter, but winced,
gripping the ropes so tight his knuckles went white. For
a second, I thought he might collapse right there. I
watched him shuffle off across the field, the goat trailing
behind him. But I listened, and once I finished bolting
the tractor panel, I headed for the south gate. The
hinge wasn't even loose, just a bit rusted, so I
oiled it and kicked it shut the check. As I
turned to walk back, I saw the goat wandering free
near the fence line, ropes still hanging from its neck.
He lifted its head to bleat at me, but I
was already sprinting past it, boots thudding on the dirt,
the ground getting softer as I reached the marsh edge.
The grass there felt spongy under foot, damp moss pulling
at my souls. As I scanned the land frantically, I
spotted him crumpled in the mud near the cattails, his
shirt pulled half out of his jeans, like he'd fallen hard.
His chest rose and fell in short, shallow jerks, eyes
half open. His body felt so light when I lifted him,
like picking up a sack of feed too long left
out to dry. His skin was clammy. His breath rattled
against my neck. As I carried him back towards the house.
I felt sorry for him, then truly sorry, and hated
myself for it. He felt so small in my arms.
I laid him down and the old brown armchair by
the window, the one with a stuffing coming out of
the arm rest, and pressed the damp cloth to his forehead.
It took nearly twenty minutes from his eyes the focus properly.
He gripped my wrist weakly, his palm cold and thin skinned,
and muttered for water. After he drank, his head sank
back against the worn cushion. My time is nearly over, boy,
he rasped, staring past me at the ceiling. It's time
you knew about the land. He swallowed, his throat clicking dryly,
back when you were little, before your mom. His eyes
drifted shut, and for a moment I thought he'd fallen asleep,
But then he drew a shuddering breath. The lens started
failing crops, rotted in the road, couldn't keep the feed
barley from mold. Even the hens stopped laying. Your mom
and I we fought a lot, then money, god, everything.
He coughed weakly, and his lip trembled. I tried everything, boy, fertiliza's,
burning off top soil, praying. Nothing took. Then one day
you came and screaming about the rabbit. You were white
as milk, couldn't get the words out right. You said
the earth swallowed him up. I thought you were lying.
But later that evening I went out there past the willow.
I saw it. The mass all peeled back, the flesh
underneath veined, pulsing like something alive. He paused, staring through me.
After it ate the rabbit, the cell field came up
green again, peas like fists. I didn't think much of
it until a week later, when the leaves yellowed overnight,
and I thought maybe he needed feeding again. So I
took an old billy goat, slit his throat right over
that hole and threw it in. His voice cracked apathetic,
thin sound. The next day the wheat stood tall, barley
heads thick, The land came back to life. And that's
how it's been. The land feeds us. We feed it, yo, mom,
She didn't understand. His fingers loosened around my wrist as
his breathing ease, the shallow rattle's eyes closing, mouth slack
stayed quiet for a long minute. I's half shut. Then
his brow pinched. I tried other things, you know, he
muttered voice, horse road kill, rotted, hard carcasses, dead crows
I found in the yard. Thought if he wanted meat,
it wouldn't matter. But every time I feated something old,
the land turned sour, crops came up yellow, the barley
rotted in the head. It needs fresh blood, boy warm,
just killed or still kicking. The first time I realized
that was when a calf was born, twisted with its
cuts half out. I didn't want it to suffer, so
I slit his throat out by the marsh and threw
it in. The Next day, the cloverfield came up thick
as wool. That's how I knew. It isn't just any meat.
It's got to be alive or near enough. That's how
it works. His eyes rolled back and his chest fluttered
like a trapped bird under his ribs. I sat there
watching him, had awful pulse of pity and disgust, throbbing
under my ribs. He swallowed again, eyes looking open just
enough to meet mine. You'll need to keep it fed, now,
he whispered. Hearing him say it like that made my
mouth go dry. All those years thinking it was just
a nightmare, But it wasn't. I really did have a rabbit.
I could see its scruffy ears in my mind, the
way it used to roll on his back, so I'd
scratched its belly. It wasn't just some blur from sleep.
It was real, and he died, swallowed up by some
sort of flesh bit. My chest hurt thinking about it,
thinking about how it suffered from the horrific nightmare, over
and over again, and my dad never said a word,
just told me to stop sniveling over nightmares. Tears burned
in my eyes. He coughed, wet and shallow, and swallowed hard.
It's your job, now, he said, voice rasping like gravel.
His eyes flicked to mine and softened for a moment,
like there was still a farther in there somewhere. You're ready.
I wouldn't ask if you weren't. He closed his eyes again,
his head rolling to the side, but his chest kept
rising and falling, each breath, thin and ragged. I sat
there for a while, taking it all in, feeling my
chest tight and my hands numb. Before I stood up,
I grabbed my coat from the peg and stepped outside.
The evening air cool again to my face. The fields
were quiet, a few crows picking at old straw bales.
I spotted the goat wandering near the ripe fence line,
rope trailing behind it through the mud. It lifted its
head when it saw me coming, bleated low and tried
to step away, but its legs sank in the churned
up soil. My hands shook as I untangled the rope
from around its hearks as I started walking it toward
the marshland. When I reached the edge of the marsh,
I could smell the pit before I could see it.
The goat snorted and pulled back against the rope, hoof
skidding in the moss, ears flicking back at the stink,
but I yanked it closer. It wasn't gray pink like
I remembered. It was darker, now, streaked with a deep
red brown. Folds of flesh ridged like the inside of
a gut. Thick yellowish slime wept from its seams, pulling
into the mud below. The center of it dipped inward,
twitching with slow pulses. The smell hit me so hard
I gagged. I stood there with the goat shifting nervously
beside me, the rope rough in my grip. I thought
about Dad's eyes when he told me I was ready.
That stupid flicker of pride in my chest burnt through
the fear. My hands were trembling so hard I could
barely loosen the rope. I slipped it off and grabbed
the goat by its back legs, feeling its weight strained
my arms. It bleated, and I didn't have it in
me to slit its throat. I couldn't, so I just
heaved it forward, flinching as its head struck the fleshy rim.
The whole pit convulsed, folds rippling outwards as it suck
the goat down in one twitch and gulp, leaving nothing
behind but the stench of blood and bile, curling up
into the evening air. I watched the ripples settle and
felt my knees go weak. I turned away, wiping my
mouth of the back of my sleeve, showing the nausea away.
But I could still hear that wet, sucking sound as
the goat slipped down and was swallowed. By morning, the
ri stood taller, dark green, and heavy headed. The calves
were born with bright eyes and strong legs, the clover
thick under their hooves. Dad noticed it too. He relaxed more,
letting me take over the work. Unfortunately, he only got
sicker and he started sleeping longer. My arms thickened and
my back grew stronger under the strain. Each night, as
I washed the dirt off in the cracked basin, I
saw someone I almost respected looking back at me. Dad
often watched me work from his chair on the porch,
his eyes softer now, his voice calmer when he spoke.
Some nights he'd tell me about the farm when I
was small, like how I used to fall asleep in
the hayloft with a bug propped on my chest, and
he'd smile a little when he said it, like he
actually loved me Back then, as I settled him in
with his mug of warm milk, it reached out and
squeezed my wrist, and I could almost believe this was
how it was always meant to be. In the weeks
after I kept feeding it, things like chickens that stopped lying,
lambs born too weak to stand. One that morning, while
hauling a freshly dead ewe across the slick ground, my
foot slid out from under me, and I toppled forward.
My hands slapped down hard on the flesh, rim, slick
and hot, and I gagged at the texture. I pushed
myself up fast, but something half buried in the slime
caught my eye. Down under a thick yellow smear was
a scrap of cloth. I reached out with shaking fingers
and pulled it free. When I rubbed away a slime
with my thumb, I saw the red shine through. My
chest went tight, my body, recognizing the material before my
brain had a chance to It was a piece of
the bow Mom wore in her hair the morning I
last saw her. For a moment, the smell of rot faded,
and all I could hear was a laugh echoing in
my memory before it twisted into that pulsing, sucking sound
beneath me, and the world tilted sideways under me. My
hand shook as I clinched the ribbon in my fist.
The anger bubbled up sharp in my chest, but under
it was dread, confusion, grief, all twisted together. I thought
about the grave by the poplar grove. Little cross he
had carved the name into. My throat felt tight. I
stumbled back to the tool shed, grabbed the shovel of
its rusty hook, and trudged out past the fence lines
to her grave. The ground was hard from weeks of sun,
but I dug anyway, Sweat dripping into my eyes, dirt
caking my arms. I dug until the shovel hit nothing
but dry earth below. There were no bones or calf in.
The anger built up heart behind my eyes, and I've
had my teeth clenched so tight my jaw ached. All
those years of being called useless, all those bruises, and
the fear and the small kindnesses that never made up
for it. I felt the rage burn up through my chest,
molten and unstoppable. He murdered her, He murdered my mom.
The bow was warm in my grip from my sweaty,
shaking hands. As I stormed back to the house, the
door slammed open against the peeling wall. He was in
his chair, the old TV, flickering shadows across his face,
eyes glazed and distant. He looked up, slow, blinking at me,
like I'd woken him from a dream. I held the
soiled ribbon out, my voice trembling with fury. I know
what you did, I boomed, I know you killed her.
Why why the hell would you do that? He looked
at the bow in my hand, then back up at me,
eyes tired and hollow. He led her a long, ragged
sigh and slumped deeper into the chair. We were running out,
he rasped, his voice, like dry gravel. No cows left,
barely any sheep. Your mom. She wouldn't let me take
the horses. She kept praying, thinking God would fix it.
But the crops were rotting, the bank was calling every week.
We were finished. I stared at him, heart pounding so
hard in heart. She didn't understand, he grote, eyes going glassy.
She said, would leave, sell the place. But this land,
it's in my blood, my father's, his father's before him.
I couldn't just let it die, she said. I was
losing my mind, that it was just rot, just bad weather,
nothing to do with the land. Wanting blood, she said
she was taking you and leaving. She said she'd call
the police if I tried to stop her. His breathing
grew shallow, rattling in his chest. I didn't plan it,
he whispered. I couldn't. I couldn't let it take everything.
I pushed her. She was standing near the loft opening,
yelling at me. She stumbled back, slipped right through, fell
down on to the feed bin, broke a neck. I
thought if the pit took her, maybe it would fix
the barley, the mold, the animals starving in their pens.
So I dragged her out there. He blinked, tears streaking
down his stubbled cheeks. She would have forgiven me, he muttered.
She always forgave me. Something inside me snapped. My vision
went hot and dark. I took a step forward, My
breath ragged. No, I spat, voice sharp enough to cut glass.
That's a lie, he flinched. You don't understand, he said,
voice cracking, as if he was arguing with himself just
as much as me. This farm was all I had left.
This land has always been my life. If I lost it,
what was left for me nothing. The anger in me
boiled over, then, furious and cruel, I grabbed his wrist,
pulling him upright despite his protests, feeling how frail and
light had become. You murdered her, you murdered everything good
that was left. I grabbed his wrist. His skin felt thin.
He gasped as I yanked him upright. His legs buckled,
nearly dropping him back into the chair, but I held
him up, feeling how light it had become. And now
you want me to keep feeling this nightmare like it's
some family duty. My voice rose sharp with disgust. Fine,
let's feed it. He shook his head weakly, tears dripping
from his chin. Don't, don't do this, lad, he wheezed.
I began pulling him towards the door. There was a
slight resistance, but nothing I couldn't overpower. He stumbled, legs
barely holding him up, and when we reached the porch steps,
he lost his footing, collapsing hard onto the rough wood.
I dragged him down the stairs, skin scraping against splintered planks.
He groaned in pain while gasping to catch his breath,
but I kept going, dragging him through the mud, his
worn shoes leaving smears in the soil. As He tried
to push against the ground and free himself from my grip.
He twisted and strained, a broken thing, fighting a losing battle,
But I had no mercy. The called marsh Are to
my face as we neared the pit, and I could
feel his ragged breaths hitched with panic. His eyes met mine,
pleading and wild with the fury that fueled me. Was
a tie too strong to hold back. Why, I shouted
as I dragged him forward. Why did you hate me
so much after she was gone? Was it guilt or
just the land telling you what to do? His eyes
flicked up to me, wide and glistening with tears. I
don't know, he whispered, voice breaking like snap twigs. I
don't know. We reached the pit, the ground soggy beneath
my boots, soft and slippy. The pit waited there, that
sick pole, steady beneath the surface. He leaned on me,
fragile and worn. I holed him upright one last time.
He trembled in my grasp, his body weak and brittle.
His skin was pale and clammy, vein standing out like
dark cords beneath a thin flesh of his hands. He
gasped struggling for breath, a rattling wheeze that tore through
the stillness. His eyes flickered wild and pleading, filled with
a desperate, fading life. I shoock muscles tight with fury. Please,
he whispered, trembling in my grip, and voice ragged. I
am your father. I locked him in the eye, voice
cold and hard. What did mom say? Did she beg
you too? Did he give her any mercy? He tried
to look away, but I tightened my grip, forcing him
to meet my eyes. Tears welled, mixing with snot as
his shoulders heaved in silent sobs. No, he sputtered. The
word was so small, so final. She deserved so much more.
I shoved him forward. He stumbled, caught for half a
second than the fleshy rim, then slipped into the pit.
It clung to him, dragging him down inch by inch.
His arms flailed, nails scraping uselessly at the veined walls
as the pit swallowed him whole with a wet, socking sound.
The folds quivered, then sealed over in silence. And it
was at that moment I realized I was more like
my father than I ever thought