I step out onto familiar land, and as I move towards the house, I catch sight of my dad on the porch. He’s deep in conversation with Bryson, our neighbor from down the road. Bryson and his wife, Nicole, were the kind of neighbors who showed up with leftovers that somehow tasted better than anything we cooked ourselves. The only time we ever heard a sound from their house was on Football Sunday, when their cheering carried clear across the field.
"Dan, you didn't tell me your daughter was in town," Bryson says, happily surprised. "Sawyer, is that you?"
"Last I checked," I smile.
"Thought I mentioned it," Daddy says.
"Well, you sure didn't, Dan. But I'll leave you two to it."
"Thanks," I murmur, as Bryson walks down the porch steps.
"Good to see you back around here, Sawyer," he calls out. He tips his hat and turns to jump into his truck.
"What do I owe the pleasure," Daddy huffs without turning. "Is this another one of our good talks?" His hands reach for the day's paper, laid across the weathered planks of the deck.
"Daddy, I'm sorry, okay?" I say, my voice surprisingly small from being on the brink of giving up this battle. "If I admit that I was wrong—that I shouldn't have left town the first chance I got like that—will you admit that you're wrong too?"
He unfurls the paper with a snap, creating a barrier between us, hiding his face. "And what exactly am I wrong about?" His voice is muffled, but the sharpness of his tone cuts through clearly.
"You're wrong for being so stubborn," I say, frustrated.
The paper rustles but he doesn’t move it out of his face. "Well, I'm getting old," he murmurs. "I got an excuse to be stubborn."
"You're more worried about your damn pride than you are about making things right with your daughter."
The chair rocks gently, the only sound in the midst of our standoff. And then, without warning, the paper lowers ever so slightly. The edge of the newspaper dips, revealing the same eyes he passed down to me.
"My daughter knows I love her. And if she thinks otherwise, it's that city that's gone to her head."
I let out a chuckle, surprising even myself.
"You're right about one thing," I admit, putting my ownpride aside. "I'm starting to wonder if the city life isn’t actually as good as I thought it was."
The newspaper dips, inch by inch, until he finally folds it shut against his knee. Over the top, Daddy eyebrow arches high. “You are?”
"Maybe I shouldn't have left. Shouldn't have been so quick to jump into a relationship with the first powerful person in a suit I met out there. Maybe I’ve been making all the wrong decisions."
He grunts, then shifts in his chair. “You know, I came to the city once.”
My head snaps up. “Wait, youcame to the city?”
“Sure did,” he says, lips tugging in a small smile. “Saw those ugly yellow cabs, people who can’t walk without a phone glued to their hand, and buildings tall enough to block the sun—all squeezed up together like cattle in a chute.”
I laugh quietly, picturing him in the city, arms crossed and unimpressed.
“Then I saw you,” he says, his voice softening. “Happy. Thrivin’. And I knew I couldn’t mess with all that good you had goin’ on.”
“Daddy,” I breathe, holding back tears. “If I knew you came all the way to the city for me, I probably would've come back with you then and there.”
He doesn’t say anything, just gives me that look—the one that sayshe knows. That he always has.
“Well, we don't live by shouldn't haves or would haves,” he finally says. “Everything in life is a lesson. You're smart, Sawyer. You always make the best decisions for you."
"I don’t know about that. But Daddy, I'm right about one thing. You need to be taken care of too." My gaze falls to thecalluses on his hands. "You and Knox can't keep up with all this land. It's too much for both of you."
His rocking chair stops creaking. He’s listening now. Really listening. Then, with a crisp crackle, he snaps the paper open again, lifting it like a shield. "Have you looked around lately?"
"At what?"
