My bones ached like they always do when the weather shifts. Old injuries — Vietnam, bad decisions, worse fights — they don’t ever really leave you. They just settle in and wait. My reflection in the freezer door showed the same man I’d been for years: gray beard, weathered skin, tattoos crawling up my arms like stories I never told out loud.
Most people see me and look away.
That’s fine. I prefer it that way.
I was halfway down the cereal aisle when I heard the running footsteps. Light. Fast. Desperate.
Before I could turn, something small slammed into me and wrapped around my arm like a lifeline.
“Please,” a tiny voice whispered, shaking so hard I felt it through my jacket. “Please pretend you’re my daddy.”
I looked down.
She couldn’t have been more than six. Hair messy, like it hadn’t been brushed properly in days. Big brown eyes, wide with a kind of fear no child should ever know. Her fingers dug into me like I was the only solid thing in a collapsing world.
