Chapter 2

Two weeks later, right in the middle of the spring holiday.

Veronica took our son into the city for his math-olympiad training, and with the free time I bought some meat and a few health supplements at the store, then rode the four-hour local bus back to my hometown.

I'd barely reached the yard of that familiar old red-brick farmhouse when I heard the shrieking curses.

A spring rain had just come through, and the ground outside the yard was nothing but mud.

“Ivor Whitney, you sonless old fool! Don't push your luck! This homestead was in my sister's name back then, and she's been dead more than ten years now. Half this land ought to go to me, her own brother!”

The one talking was my own uncle, Benedict Lawrence.

A man in his fifties who did nothing but loaf around, killing his days at the card parlor in town.

I pushed open one half of the rickety wooden door.

What I saw made my eyes burn.

A few big cabbages he'd planted in the yard had been ripped up by the roots and thrown into the muddy water.

Ivor Whitney sat hunched on a little folding stool in the yard, both arms clamped around a small wooden box against his chest.

He was nearly seventy now, his hair long since gone white, the blue cotton jacket on him washed pale, and the canvas shoes on his feet worn through at the edges, his big toe poking out.

“Ben, this house is Theo's roots for the years ahead. As long as I've got one day of breath in me, you don't touch this house.”

Ivor's voice wasn't loud, but under the rasp there was a stubbornness that wouldn't quit.

“Theo? Hah!” Benedict hawked a gob of phlegm into a puddle in the yard, his whole face twisted with scorn.

“A man who married in to breed for a widow, and you really think you're his father? Theodore Fox is a big-shot PhD in the city now. Owns his own place, drives his own car! And how many times a year does he ever come back to see you?”

Benedict jabbed a finger at Ivor's face as he cursed him. “Only an idiot like you would work himself half to death raising another man's seed, and to this day you've never once set foot on a tiled city floor! Hurry up and hand over that property deed. I'm selling this house today, and that's final!”

With that, Benedict stepped forward to snatch the wooden box out of Ivor's arms.

Ivor shrank back with everything he had, twisted sideways, and went down into the mud, stool and all.

“Uncle! What do you think you're doing!”

I couldn't hold back another second. I dropped everything in my hands, closed the distance in a few strides, grabbed Benedict by the collar, and shoved him hard.

“Ow!” Benedict staggered back a few steps and nearly fell.

Once he saw it was me, he let out a cold sneer.

“Well, well, the man himself is back. Theodore, your mother's land. Give me a straight answer. Do I get my share or not?”

“Get out.”

I stared him down and pointed at the gate, my eyes red. “Come near my dad again, and I'll go straight to the town police station and report you for breaking into a home, and for extortion!”

Benedict flinched back half a step at the cold, murderous look in my eyes.

“Fine! So you two, father and son, are ganging up on me now? You just wait!”

He kicked at the cabbages on the ground, cursing under his breath, and slunk off.

The yard went quiet.

Ivor sat there covered in mud, slowly reaching out to gather up the cabbage leaves from the ground.

He glanced at me, and something uneasy and eager to please flickered through his cloudy eyes.

“Theo, what brought you back all of a sudden? Ronnie and Ethan didn't come? The place is a mess, don't hold it against me……”

I looked at his knees straining to bend, at those worn-through shoes planted in the mud and water, and the tears just spilled out of me.

I ran over, pulled him up out of the mud, and choked out a single word. “Dad……”