Part 7: Two Figures on a Road
We must’ve looked like shadows from a distance—two figures, one tall and slouched, the other hunched at the shoulder, walking slowly down a cracked gravel road under a sky still bruised from the morning storm.
The only sound was the steady crunch of our boots and the low rasp of my father’s breath.
He wasn’t doing well. I could feel it in the way he leaned a little heavier every half mile, the way he paused longer between steps. But he never said a word of complaint.
That was Frank Wilkins through and through.
Say nothing. Keep going.
The road to Warsaw was long and mostly empty. Cornfields on both sides, the stalks just high enough to whisper when the wind moved through them. We passed an old silo with a rusted ladder and a barn collapsed like a broken knuckle. I remembered them from when I was a boy—back when Frank used to drive this road to pick up feed, or visit a friend who’d lost a leg in Korea.
He’d told me once, “You can tell the strength of a man by whether he rebuilds the barn after the roof caves in.”
I never asked if he meant the barn or himself.
“Need a break?” I asked when I noticed him rubbing his side again.
He nodded, barely.
We sat down on a flat rock by the ditch. The sun was out now, warming the gravel and our backs. A dragonfly landed near his boot.
He pulled off his cap, wiped his forehead with a rag he kept in his back pocket.
“I used to run these roads, you know,” he said after a while.
“Yeah?”
“Back in ’63. Thought maybe I’d do a local marathon. Didn’t happen.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Life got in the way. Job. Bills. Kids.”
Then, after a pause, “And maybe I was scared I wouldn’t finish.”
That last part stuck with me.
The idea that Frank Wilkins—who’d survived war, loss, backbreaking labor—was afraid of anything at all.
But maybe that’s the point.
Even men who seem like stone have fault lines.
We started walking again.
By the third mile, I offered to call Dylan. My son. He was only a few hours away.
“I could have him pick us up,” I said.
Dad shook his head. “No. Let him be.”
“I think he’d come if I asked.”
“I know he would. That’s why I won’t let you.”
I didn’t understand.
But I didn’t argue.
The sky opened wider as we neared the turnoff. You could see the little white clinic building from a distance—a squat, square structure with a faded American flag out front and a gravel lot with no more than three cars.
My chest eased just a little.
Dad stopped again.
“Give me a minute,” he said.
He was pale.
Sweat traced down the side of his temple.
“Okay,” I said gently. “Just don’t pretend you’re fine.”
He chuckled once. “If I pretended that now, I’d be dumber than a sack of hammers.”
I helped him sit again. We shared a bottle of water I’d kept from the truck. He took slow sips, like each one mattered.
Then he looked up at me with something new in his face—something I couldn’t name.
“Remember when you broke your wrist?” he asked.
“Which time?” I smiled.
“The first. You were eight. Fell out of that tree behind the barn.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You carried me to the truck. Never said a word the whole ride.”
“You were crying like hell,” he said. “But you didn’t let go of my sleeve the whole way.”
I swallowed hard.
“I should’ve held on more,” I said.
He waved it off.
“Nah. I wasn’t easy to hold.”
He looked toward the clinic in the distance.
“You know,” he added, “this walk—it ain’t about the doctor.”
“No?”
He shook his head.
“It’s about showing you I trust you. That I know you’ll get me there.”
I had to turn my face away for a second.
The air suddenly felt too bright.
We reached the edge of the clinic lot just as the wind picked up again. A nurse in scrubs stood at the door, shielding her eyes.
“You folks okay?” she called.
I nodded. “He’s got a heart condition. Took a turn earlier.”
She waved us in.
“We’ll get him checked in right now.”
I held the door for him.
For once, he didn’t argue.
He just stepped inside, shoulders forward, hands loose at his sides—like a man stepping into a space he didn’t want but was ready for.
Inside, it smelled like antiseptic and coffee.
A man at the counter handed us a clipboard. Dad waved it off.
“I’m already in the system.”
The receptionist looked him up.
“Franklin J. Wilkins?”
“That’s me.”
“VA or private today?”
He paused. Then looked at me.
I nodded once.
“Private,” he said.
The nurse led us to a room. Blood pressure. Oxygen. EKG hookup. The whole thing.
I watched him wince when they placed the sensors.
“His pulse is irregular,” the nurse said quietly. “We’ll run a panel. Might be early afib.”
He gave a weak smile. “Told you I had rhythm.”
We waited for the doctor.
The nurse left the room. Just the two of us now.
He looked around at the beige walls, the outdated posters, the rattling air vent above.
“Not much of a palace,” he said.
“No,” I said. “But it’s got doors that open.”
He leaned back in the chair.
“Wish I’d walked sooner,” he murmured.
I reached over, rested my hand on his arm.
“You’re here now. That’s what counts.”
Outside, the breeze rustled the trees.
Inside, for the first time in a long time, it was quiet—but not empty.
Not like before.
We were two men in a small room.
But it felt like a lifetime had finally crossed the space between us.
[End of Part 7]
👉 Part 8: The Test Results Came Back—and So Did the Rain
As the doctor read the numbers, I braced for news I couldn’t undo.
But it wasn’t just his heart they diagnosed—it was everything he’d been carrying in silence.
And when the rain returned, I saw something in him I’d never seen before:
Relief.
