He didn’t say much on the drive out. Just stared out the window, one hand resting lightly on the armrest like it was holding onto something invisible. I asked a few quiet questions—about the land, the old barn—but he just smiled in that quiet, distant way some people do when they’re carrying stories too heavy for words.
We hadn’t known each other long. I’d only met him—my biological father—a few months earlier. I was 24 when a family DNA test unexpectedly revealed that the man who raised me wasn’t my biological dad. It triggered a storm of questions, uncomfortable truths, and eventually, a name: Nathan Boyd. I called once and hung up. The second time, he answered with a flat “Yeah?”—not warm, but not entirely closed off either.
Somehow, that led us to this road trip.
The silence broke the moment we turned onto a gravel path. His shoulders tensed. His jaw set tight. The barn came into view—old but still standing. The fence looked newer, maybe replaced by someone trying to hold onto the past a little longer. The fields rolled out wide and open, full of wild grass and memories.
“Stop here,” he said suddenly. His first words in half an hour.
I pulled over. He stepped out before the truck stopped moving and stood there, just breathing in the land. Then he walked to the fence.
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