He doesn’t have to say it, because silence speaks louder than words. His distance feels like blame dressed as restraint. He loves me, I think he does, but maybe love can coexist with resentment. Maybe love can choke on memory.

Sometimes I think Papa’s illness is the universe’s cruel art, a reminder that even the most beautiful creations decay. Papa was beauty in defiance, now he is beauty in endurance. The world has a way of punishing both.

But the man I see now, the one sitting by the window wrapped in layers of wool, is no god of thunder. He’s a quiet ruin, the aftermath of a war no one else remembers. His skin, once soft and glowing, now looks like marble left too long in the rain, tight and pale, cracked in places where life used to bloom. His fingers tremble when he holds a... See more