Collateral Damage

The **bull** had died three weeks ago. Marcus stood in the middle of what used to be his father's ranch, watching his brother sift through the inheritance paperwork. The animal's skull rested against the fence, a testament to seventeen years of stubborn dominance that their father had respected more than either of his sons.

"You gonna sell the place?" Marcus asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Can't afford not to." David didn't look up. "Stock market's been running like a scared **dog** lately. My portfolio's down forty percent."

Marcus nodded. His own life wasn't faring better. Sarah had left him six months ago, citing his emotional unavailability and his unwillingness to try again for children. The **hair** she'd loved running her fingers through had started thinning at his temples anyway—a physical manifestation of everything he was losing.

"Remember **baseball** season?" David said suddenly, leaning against the porch post. "Dad would take us to those minor league games every Saturday. The way he'd explain each play like it was philosophy."

"He hated sports."

"Exactly." David cracked a smile. "He was trying."

Marcus walked to the backyard. The swimming **pool** their father had installed—some misguided attempt to buy their affection in the divorce years—sat half-filled with rainwater and fallen leaves. He and Sarah had made love in this pool once, drunk on wine and the desperation of trying to reconnect after her second miscarriage. They'd conceived something that night: the realization that they couldn't save each other.

His phone buzzed. Sarah. He stared at her name, thumb hovering over the screen. She wanted to finalize the divorce papers. Something about needing closure.

"You ever think about how much we're just him?" Marcus said.

David joined him at the pool's edge. "What?"

"The way he couldn't say what he meant. The way we learned to love through property and gestures instead of words." Marcus gestured at the water. "This pool. It was never about swimming."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with everything they wouldn't say. Their father's legacy wasn't the land or the money. It was the exquisite art of being emotionally absent while surrounded by the evidence of caring.

David pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket—something their father would have despised. "I'm gonna keep the ranch, Marcus. Fix it up. Maybe you could come by weekends. Help me get that **bull** buried proper."

Marcus looked at his brother, really looked at him, and saw something he hadn't noticed before: David was aging. There were lines around his eyes, grey in his beard. They were both becoming their father, slowly and inevitably.

"Yeah," Marcus said, phone still buzzing in his hand. "I'd like that."