A Father's Love

A Father's Love-Chapter 1

I started writing this for my dad on Father's day, and then decided to continue it. I'll give you the first chapter now, and post another one later.

“Stand to attention men!” Rick shouted over our racket. Ever since the accident two years ago, he hasn’t stopped drilling me and my brothers, cousins, and other family members. I guess he just wants revenge, but one would think that after a while, he’d give up. There had been no sign of my mother for two whole years and my father had been ripped to shreds over her loss. She was everything to him, and now she was gone. My father seemed to ignore the fact that there were women in the group, a few, but not many.

“In line! March!” He acts like some drill sergeant. I mean, we don’t even have guns or anything, just pistols and stuff. Oh yeah, we all have pocket knives or other little knives, but nothing to hold our own. It’s really irritating. He basically lost his mind when mom got taken, and he wants nothing but her back. He used to be protective of all of us, but everyone knew that he would die for her. Sometimes we wondered how life would be different if dad had been taken instead. Sure, dad had organization skills, but I didn’t think he had ever properly mourned for her.

“Focus!” He snapped. I cringed. He rarely used that tone with me. I continued on the almost maddening march and took in my surroundings. All nineteen of us lived on a huge farm in the country. It was summer time now and everything was brown and withered. This was exactly how I felt right now. Withered. It was over 110º out and sweat was pouring down my face. I tried to see the good in my father, but there seemed to be nothing left.

“March around the grounds twice. No talking. Meet back here at noon.” He stormed off to the ranch house as our tired, sweaty bunch hurried to obey his orders…two of them at least. In order to go two laps around the grounds, we would walk nearly fifteen miles. We had only around two hours to make the whole two laps, and we were loaded down with ammunition, weapons, and packs filled with who knows what.

“Man, these rocks weigh more than last time.” My brother Chris complained.

“It’s your own fault Chris.” I replied. The only rule we openly disobeyed, was talking. We talked, laughed, teased, cried, and acted like ordinary people when we walked. When we neared the ranch house, we were silent, but apart from that, Rick couldn’t see us and definitely wouldn’t be able to tell if we were enjoying ourselves. Of the twelve of us who had to do walking, only one of us was younger than fourteen, my twelve year old cousin Drake. He’s a pain in the neck because of his pranks, but I think he pulls the heaviest load. He’s a neat kid, when he’s not pushing our buttons.

The oldest in our group was twenty-two year old Maggie. She’s the second only girl in the whole bunch of us young adults. In the ranch house, dad’s in there almost 24/7, except when he’s yelling at us for slacking off. He gets on my nerves so much though. For all I know, he stares at a computer screen, makes up orders, and eats his fill. I sighed.

“What’s up?” Chris asked.

“Nothing.” There were six other people who didn’t participate in our daily laps. One was the cook, the second was the butler, the third was my grandfather, the fourth my great-grandmother, the fifth Maggie’s brother, Dylan, who had an amputation the year before everything happened. He is kind of our doctor, since he spends most of his time reading medical books. The sixth is his wife of one year, Elaine. She’s five months pregnant, and who seriously wants to walk around all day while pregnant? At least dad had enough sense not to force her to do it.

“So which is better? Pepperoni or Hawaiian?”

“Huh?” I was startled out of my daze. Drake was grinning at me, but the question was asked by my twin brother Alex.