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“There are a thousand ways to win a war, Gracin,” his father used to tell him, “but all you really need is one.”
Gracin is five the first time he hears the phrase, and he knows almost instinctively that it’s something his father enjoys saying, and that he’s been saying it a long time. The words have the weight of a man of experience, and he knows that his father is old, far older than he looks. That’s the curse of an angel. They watch the world turn for as long as the world will let them, and some get to watch longer than most. Everett Collinsworth is getting to be close to two hundred by the time Gracin is born, and everything he does indicates that despite those two hundred years of wisdom, he is no more capable of being a father than any other man.
In fact, as far as Gracin is concerned, it’s less. Other fathers play games with their children. Other fathers hold them when they cry, not tell them to suck it up and be a man. He’s five years-old. He’s not supposed to be a man yet.
His mother is an angel as well—a gorgeous angel of healing with long red hair, and she’s such a softer presence than his father. Her children gravitate to her like moths to a flame, and there’s simply something about her nature that makes their father seem just a bit softer. They never really notice how rough around the edges he truly is until she’s gone.
And as these things often go, she is gone far too soon.
( *** )
1205 words
Gracin is five the first time he hears the phrase, and he knows almost instinctively that it’s something his father enjoys saying, and that he’s been saying it a long time. The words have the weight of a man of experience, and he knows that his father is old, far older than he looks. That’s the curse of an angel. They watch the world turn for as long as the world will let them, and some get to watch longer than most. Everett Collinsworth is getting to be close to two hundred by the time Gracin is born, and everything he does indicates that despite those two hundred years of wisdom, he is no more capable of being a father than any other man.
In fact, as far as Gracin is concerned, it’s less. Other fathers play games with their children. Other fathers hold them when they cry, not tell them to suck it up and be a man. He’s five years-old. He’s not supposed to be a man yet.
His mother is an angel as well—a gorgeous angel of healing with long red hair, and she’s such a softer presence than his father. Her children gravitate to her like moths to a flame, and there’s simply something about her nature that makes their father seem just a bit softer. They never really notice how rough around the edges he truly is until she’s gone.
And as these things often go, she is gone far too soon.
( *** )
1205 words
