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He hugged me tighter. “That’s a great idea,” he said. “I’m glad you thought of
it.”
“Would you have really been sad?” I asked, snuggling back down onto him. “If
I’d been gone?”
“Yes,” he whispered as sleep began to chase me. “I’d have been very sad. If we
were ever apart, I’d miss you every day until we were together again.” “Because you’re my daddy?”
“Because I’m your daddy.”
I considered this sleepily and came to the only conclusion I could. “I guess you
love me, huh?”
“Oh yes. Very much so.”
“Why?”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Because there is no one such as you
in the world, and you belong to me. I’ll believe in you always because you are my
son. You’re going to be strong and brave, and one day, you’re going to be a great
man and you will stand for what you believe in. I have faith that you will stand and
be true.”
I didn’t understand, but then I was asleep, so it didn’t matter. I was safe against
Big Eddie.
I woke briefly, later in the night, to my father carrying me back up the road, my
backpack slung over one of his big arms, my head on his shoulder, his hand on my
back, rubbing in slow circles as he sang a familiar song. “Sometimes I float along the
river, for to its surface I am bound. And there are times stones done fill my pockets,
oh Lord, and it's into this river I drown.”
He carried me all the way home, and I knew it would all be okay because my
father held me in his arms.
Griggs points the rifle at me. The river roars at my back. The heels of my feet
are on the river’s edge. The rain pours from the sky.
“You killed Big Eddie,” I say. “You should have just left things alone, Benji,” he snaps at me. “All of this could have been avoided had you just walked away.”
“I am my father’s son.”
He laughs. “And look where that’s gotten you! The same place where Big Eddie drowned. It’s almost poetic, if you think about it.”
